The Kurdish Peace Institute (KPI), a Washington-based think-tank focused on research, policy and analysis of the Kurdish issue, has opened a new office in Qamishli (Qamişlo), the de facto capital of Kurdish-led North and East Syria.
The institute will work on-the-ground to produce research focused on the complex situation in the multi-ethnic region governed by the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES). The new office has recently produced research profiling Turkish attacks against US-sponsored projects in the region.
“We are proud to announce the launch of our sister office in Qamishlo,” the KPI said. “We believe that understanding the issues that matter most in Kurdistan and the world requires direct engagement with people, ideas and developments on the ground.”
The think-tank is committed to “providing a comprehensive and non-derivative understanding of Kurdistan and the states in which Kurds live to decision-makers and the public in the United States.”
The research institute will work to counter a shift away from a focus on Syria and the regional Kurdish question, arguing that the “security challenges and humanitarian crises these conflicts create have increased, not diminished.”
“The US is without strategy — and sometimes even without tactics,” KPI reiterated, “at a time when political solutions that address the roots of both crises is needed.”
In an initial piece of on-the-ground research, the KPI detailed civilian facilities in North and East Syria destroyed by Turkish airstrikes in December 2023 and January 2024, some of which were funded by USAID, a US State Department initiative aimed at stabilising conflict regions, the institute said.
The attacks came after Turkish authorities explicitly announced an intention to degrade humanitarian infrastructure in the region, launching waves of airstrikes which imperilled millions by targeting healthcare, water, and crucial energy services.
“Among the infrastructure sites destroyed in these bombing campaigns were a medical oxygen bottling plant in Qamishlo and a power station in Darbasiyah — both of which received USAID support,” KPI researchers Meghan Bodette, Helez Abdulaziz and Aras Yussef stated.
“When the Kurdish Peace Institute visited the sites in March 2024, both remained non-operational.”
The US remains formally allied with the region’s Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), as part of the US-led International Coalition to Defeat ISIS. The repair, restructure and stabilisation of the region is viewed as crucial for preventing an ISIS resurgence.
But when the peace institute visited the sites affected by the Turkish airstrikes – which also killed scores of civilians, AANES employees and SDF personnel – they remained in ruins. The report documents the impact of these attacks on the humanitarian situation in the region and life for millions of citizens, imperilling tentative stabilisation efforts.
Wim Zwinjenburg, a Humanitarian Disarmament Project Leader for Dutch peace-building organisation PAX, is quoted by the KPI as saying:
“The result of the [Turkish] airstrikes on civilian infrastructure will be a setback of the work to improve the socio-economic and living conditions for civilians that international donors and humanitarian organisations are trying to achieve.
“The strikes will also discourage further investments in rebuilding a society that has been severely affected by the war. As a consequence, the humanitarian situation will grow worse.”
