Sarah Glynn
Amidst all the noise of world affairs, key people in Syria are quietly getting on with negotiating a better future. Of course, this is far from easy and there are many hurdles in their path, not least from their predatory Turkish neighbours, but there is also pragmatism and an overwhelming need to make things work. These are shared by both the interim government in Damascus and the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria.
Provisional agreements in Syria
This week I want to focus on dialogue rather than aggression, and I will begin with the clear and encouraging words of Mazloum Abdi, Commander in Chief of the Autonomous Administration’s Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), who was interviewed by Amberin Zaman of Al Monitor on 8 April.
When asked about the 10 March agreement with Syria’s Interim President, Ahmed al-Sharaa, which he signed on behalf of the SDF, Abdi said that the content was agreed in a three-hour discussion where “the atmosphere was cordial and relaxed. We were shown respect and hospitality.” Although the United States facilitated the meeting and made sure Abdi got there safely, and although Abdi said that he doubted the agreement could have been made without Turkish approval, neither the US nor Turkey was represented in the discussions.
That first framework agreement has now led onto the provisional agreement for the two Kurdish-majority neighbourhoods of Aleppo that I described two weeks ago, and the agreement for the protection and maintenance of the crucial Tishreen Dam that I mentioned last week.
The SDF has left the Aleppo neighbourhoods, but the neighbourhood councils are still running their own affairs and their own autonomous internal security. Last Sunday, the transitional government and the neighbourhood councils together began to remove the earthen barriers around the neighbourhoods, and the neighbourhood internal security forces, together with forces from the Syrian Ministry of Interior, began to jointly man checkpoints connecting the neighbourhoods to the rest of the city. A member of the joint committee told North Press Agency, “The implementation is progressing faster than expected, and things are going well”.
The strategic and vital Tishreen Dam, which spans the Euphrates southeast of Manbij has been under attack by Turkey and their mercenary militias – the so-called Syrian National Army (SNA) – since December. The SDF had succeeded in holding onto the dam, and had retaken land up to 8km west of the river, but bomb damage had shut down the turbines, depriving thousands of homes of electricity, and of water, too, as the pumps couldn’t work. There had also been warnings of potentially catastrophic flooding if the structure was breeched. The targeting of vital infrastructure is a war crime, and convoys of people from different parts of North and East Syria had been coming to the dam to protest at this attack on their means of existence. Turkey had responded by targeting and killing the protestors.
The new agreement, mediated by the United States, should see the dam become demilitarised. The SDF will withdraw from the west bank and hand over to Syrian government forces, which, in the words of Mazloum Abdi to Al Monitor, “will effectively serve as a buffer between our forces and those of the SNA with which our forces have been fighting”. Similar to the arrangement for Aleppo, the management and control of the dam and its turbines remains with the Autonomous Administration, protected by the Administration’s internal security forces.
Turkey is a main player in this agreement, and Abdi explained in his 8 April interview that the negotiations had already achieved a pause in hostilities that had lasted over twelve days. He also stated that Turkey had set aside their more extreme demands and was beginning to refrain from using terms such as “terrorist”. He noted, “We observed an acceptance of the idea of integrating the Syrian Democratic Forces and the institutions of the administration into the Syrian state, which is a notable positive development.”
Yesterday, the SDF, Syrian government forces, and forces from the US-led coalition came together for a joint patrol along the M4 road that separates the Autonomous Administration from the Turkish-occupied northern strip where the SNA holds sway.
Meanwhile, talks are ongoing about education and the national recognition of diplomas awarded by the education system of North and East Syria.
The Turkish response
Despite these hopeful developments – and clear Turkish concessions – the rhetoric coming from Turkey remains firmly antagonistic towards any sort of autonomy within Syria. With presumed reference to the SDF and their desire to preserve their identity within Syria’s army, Turkey’s Defence Minister has warned that any “entity or institution that does not lay down its arms will continue to be a legitimate target”. President Erdoğan also issued a warning that “some parties are testing Turkey’s patience regarding Syria,” and Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has stated that “there shall be no federal structure”, and that the Kurdish forces “will lay down their weapons and join the national army.”
Other minorities
The Autonomous Administration is not alone in wanting to retain a level of autonomy. In Suweyda, in the south, Druze militias have also not joined the Syrian Government forces, and Druze leaders want to ensure that the region is protected by a security force that is representative of local people. There are worries about control by Islamists who have traditionally regarded the Druze as heretics, about the government’s origins in Al-Nusra Front, about the presence of foreign jihadists, and about the lethal sectarianism demonstrated by the massacre of Alawites last month.
The Alawites themselves have even less reason to trust the government. Foza Yusif, a senior officer of the Autonomous Administration, has compared the attacks against the Alawites, for which the interim government bears ultimate responsibility, to the genocide of the Yazidis in 2014. She has also warned of deliberate attempts to destroy interethnic harmony and incite conflict between Kurds and Arabs.
Studying these developments from his prison on İmralı, Abdullah Öcalan observed – as reported by his nephew – “the Druze and the Alawites should establish a system, and these systems should act in coordination with the system established by the Kurds.”
Ilhan Ahmed, co-chair of North and East Syria’s Foreign Relations Department, further emphasised the need for decentralisation and recognition of minority rights at last week’s Sulaymaniyah Forum in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. She spoke, too, of the importance of Öcalan’s ideology in guiding the Autonomous Administration’s cultural and social life.
The Autonomous Administration has created a committee for negotiations with Damascus. It is made up of three Kurds, three Arabs and a Syriac, and its seven members include three women. There are also plans for a conference to bring together different Kurdish parties into a joint negotiating platform. This will include opposition groups linked to the Kurdistan Democratic Party in Iraq, as well as the parties that created the Autonomous Administration, but such Kurdish unity continues to be elusive and there have been repeated postponements.
The Autonomous Administration has never forgotten about the overriding desire of displaced people to return home, but this is difficult when home is in an area still occupied by Turkey and their SNA. Discussions on how to resolve this are ongoing, but some people do not want to wait. Turkish-occupied Afrîn is said to be less dangerous than in the recent past, with some presence of forces from the Syrian government, and it is now easier to travel there. Many settlers who had come to Afrîn from other parts of Syria plan to leave and to return to their places of origin, but people coming back to Afrîn have found their homes looted and badly damaged.
The United States
The United States was responsible for supporting the growth of Islamist militias early in Syria’s civil war – in order to bring about regime change – but in recent years the presence of American troops in North and East Syria has prevented Turkey from undertaking further invasions. Consequently, most people in this region do not want to see the Americans go. This week there has been much talk and speculation about US troop reductions, however these would simply bring the numbers down closer to what they were before the recent surge.
Before leaving Syria for Turkey, I want to mention a further demonstration of the continued volatility of this country, which is under pressure from all sides and from within. On Wednesday, the Interior Minister announced that they had thwarted an attempted coup by officers of the former regime.
In Turkey
While the Turkish government talks big in Syria, it continues to face mass protests at home. People are continuing to respond to the arrest of Ekrem İmamoğlu – deposed mayor of Istanbul and the main opposition challenger for the presidency – and to the attack on democracy that this entails.
Autocracy often combines callousness towards humanity with callousness towards the environment. İmamoğlu has protested that the Turkish government is grabbing the opportunity created by the mayor’s absence to plough ahead with another mega project – Canal Istanbul – despite warnings of major environmental disaster.
Against this unlikely background, there remains a flicker of hope in the discussions about peace that have begun between Öcalan and a delegation from the pro-Kurdish leftist DEM Party. There have still been no concrete actions from the government to allow the process to move forward and to demonstrate that this process is more than a rhetorical trick; and Turkey is still bombing the areas in Iraq where the PKK have their bases. However, speaking at an international conference in Rome last Saturday, Pervin Buldan, one of the two main members of the DEM Party delegation, expressed confidence, and noted that they had arranged to meet the Justice Minister the following Friday. Before that meeting could happen, the other main delegation member, Sırrı Süreyya Önder, was rushed into hospital for major heart surgery, and he remains in critical condition. Many people have gone to the hospital to show their support, including politicians of all kinds. Some will be there for reasons of etiquette, but there is also truth in the words of the DEM Party co-chair, Tuncer Bakırhan, that “above all, they stood in solidarity because of his fight for peace, for democracy, for his honourable struggle.”
Sarah Glynn is a writer and activist – check her website and follow her on Twitter or bluesky
