A Medya News panel discussion, entitled “Beyond the crisis – building a strategic relationship with Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria”, has brought together expert analysts and politicians to ask how the West can build an enduring strategic relationship with the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) and support the Kurdish-led region in creating a more democratic Middle East.
Attendees heard from Nadine Maenza, President of the International Religious Freedom Secretariat; David L. Phillips, Director of the Program on Peace-building and Rights at Columbia University; Sinam Mohamad, Syrian Democratic Council representative to the USA; and Dastan Jasim, Research Fellow at the GIGA Institute for Middle Eastern Studies.
Sinam Mohamad, who represents the region in Washington as the official delegate of the multi-ethnic SDC to the USA, opened the panel. She summarized the recent wave of deadly airstrikes and fresh threats of a Turkish ground invasion against the region, before going on to explain the key demands the SDC has been putting to the US government.
Responding to Turkey’s claimed casus belli of a deadly explosion in Istanbul allegedly conducted by Kurdish insurgents with links to North and East Syria’s Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and People’s Protection Units, she said:
“We said if they are claiming that accusing the SDF or the YPG of doing that let us have an investigation, an international committee… Because the SDF, administration and YPG have all denied that and refuse [the claims]. They did not do it at all. So we want to make sure, and not give any excuses to Turkey to attack our region again.”
David Phillips was then asked to analyse the geostrategic necessity for the USA of engaging with and supporting the region, which has been Washington’s key partner on the ground in the fight against ISIS. Turning the well-known aphorism that “the Kurds have no friends but the mountains” on its head, he argued that “the Kurds are the USA’s only friends in the Middle East.”
He added:
“The idea that we can rely on Turkey as an ally is completely false. Turkey often uses its NATO status to justify special treatment, but it’s time for a steely-eyed response. Turkey’s current offensive cannot stand. The US can handle it diplomatically, but instead of quiet diplomacy it needs to speak out loudly and often, accusing Turkey of being a terror state, killing Kurds gratuitously and for no reason.”
Shifting the focus from the USA to Europe, Dastan Jasim then analyzed the particular threat posed by Turkey’s destabilising actions to European powers, particularly given Turkish President Erdoğan’s claimed role as a mediator in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
She said:
“Vis-a-vis Russia, Turkey is also very dangerous for the European Union in as much as Turkey is becoming a kind of gateway for Russia. All of the effort and all of the investment in Ukraine is really in vain, because it’s these kind of countries that are still giving Russia a lot of access. On the other hand, we still have all these escalations, military and verbal, vis-a-vis Greece. We have all these claims by Erdoğan, all these islands he’s going to take back and all this space he’s claiming in the Eastern Mediterranean… all of the statements on northern Cyprus… and the very escalatory role Turkey is playing in Libya, Armenia and Azerbaijan with all of their proxy forces there.”
The final contributor, former US Commission on International Religious Freedom Commissioner Nadine Maenza, expanded on a recent article she wrote for the National Interest highlighting the democracy being established under the AANES as crucial to establishing stability, protection of minority rights and peace in the region.
She said:
“Even if the USA’s main goal is to ensure the ‘enduring defeat of ISIS’, even if that is the only reason they’re going to be in NES, military action is not long-term. You can get the bad guy a million times over, but if you want it to be permanent, you need governance that holds the ground, so we don’t have to go back and fight for it again. We keep talking about wanting to end ‘forever wars’: this is not about military action in and of itself… What we need is governance that fills the void, and that is what they’ve done in NES with the Autonomous Administration.”
The panel then took questions from the floor, analysing issues including the shift in policy under US President Joe Biden, the mechanisms by which the USA can promote the AANES as an alternative to the Assad government in Syria, and Russia’s strategy in NES.
You can listen to the full panel discussion via the link here.