Syria Kurds Set Terms for Partnership With Assad

[Comrade Grumpy]

Source: Al Jazeera

Official of YPG group battling ISIL says they are willing to coordinate with anyone who is ready for democracy.

A Syrian Kurdish official has told Al Jazeera that the government of President Bashar al-Assad could be a partner if it commits itself to a democratic future.

Currently involved in battling the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Syria, Syrian Kurdish fighters, known as the YPG, have long denied links with the Damascus government.

However, the two sides could have a much more collaborative road ahead.

<That's the whole article>

Read more: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/08/syrian-kurds-sets-terms-assad-partnership-150803191234786.html

---

The fruits of Turkey's renewed attacks on the Kurds.

At the same time, the US announces it will use air power to attack anyone--including the Syrian government--who attacks our few dozen "moderate rebels."

Whee, down the whirpool we go.

[Comrade Grumpy]

1. Good article on the context of Assad-Kurdish cooperation:

This is Voice of America material, so I'm dumping in the whole thing.

https://www.the-newshub.com/international/contextualizing-assad-kurdish-coordination

Contextualizing Assad-Kurdish coordination

Since the United States began bombing the Islamic State (ISIS) terror group in Syria it has consistently denied coordinating strikes against them with the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad and invariably denounced him and called his rule illegitimate. The US has, however, coordinated operations with the Syrian Kurdish YPG (“Peoples Protection Units”) who in turn have recently began to undertake ad-hoc coordination with forces under Assad's command against ISIS. This should not dissuade the United States from continuing to give air support to the YPG in its endeavours to fight ISIS and keep that terror group from overrunning its territory in Northern Syria.

The Kurds did not revolt against Assad back in 2011. They were therefore granted hitherto unprecedented de-facto autonomy in Northern Syria. They have since, however, come under heavy assault from Islamist's like ISIS who wish to destroy their communities and subjugate them – most notably at Kobani, which ISIS viciously besieged for 134 days.

For some time now the Syrian city of Hasakeh has been divided between the YPG and forces loyal to the Assad regime. Both of them have been fighting ISIS which seeks to overrun that strategically important urban center which sits near the Iraqi border and just south of Syrian Kurdistan's easternmost canton, Jazira – where, incidentally, much of Syria's oil reserves are located. Syrian military forces and the YPG have been fighting the same foe but haven't necessarily been allies. Gradually they are coordinating more against ISIS. But it hasn't always been so cordial.

The YPG and the Syrian Army clashed in Hasakeh last January when the latter struck targets relating to the former with artillery. That incident did not intensify into a broader escalation of violence and today they are both pitted against ensuring their common enemy does not overrun Hasakeh.

However, all coordination between the Kurds and the Assad regime has been strictly ad-hoc and necessitated purely out of expediency more than anything else. This is crucial to remember. The Kurds consolidated their autonomy following the withdrawal of Syrian forces from their territory. The Turkish government has been gravely irked by the rise of an autonomous Kurdish entity on its southern border controlled by an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

Furthermore, before the recent coordination at Hasakeh the Syrian regime provided the Kurds with arms and money. Weapons which included tanks and even surface-to-air missiles, potentially giving them the ability to shoot down Turkish aircraft supporting a Turkish incursion into their territory.

However, this doesn't make them allies and this doesn't mean that if Assad manages to prevail over all his adversaries in Syria that the Kurds will willingly surrender their autonomy. They might not necessarily breakaway from Syria but they will nevertheless seek to retain autonomy and self-governance in their parts of the country. As one Syrian Kurd told Journey Man TV, “If there was political change in Damascus, one which led to democracy then we could deal with them. Our Rojava [hence Syrian Kurdistan] could function in cooperation with Damascus.”

The US shouldn't at all be dissuaded from continuing to support the YPG in its fight against ISIS. Air strikes alone against a group like ISIS can only hope to have limited results. However, when carried out in tandem and in coordination with a ground force like YPG, they can have decisive results. In Kobani they gave the besieged Kurds a decisive edge over their ISIS attackers. Which is likely the reason behind ISIS trying to afflict mass casualties through infiltration terror bombings as opposed to more outright attempts aimed at overrunning Kurdish territory.

Furthermore, Syrian Kurdish/Assad coordination and cooperation isn't even the most noteworthy development to take part in Northern Syria. Remember last month when the Turkish government accused the YPG of ethnically cleansing the Arab town of Tal Abyad after they kicked ISIS out of it and annexed their two primary cantons, Kobani and Jazira?

Recent reports from Northern Syria, however, indicate the contrary has proven to be so. Arabs and Turkomen are working with the Kurds to govern their newly liberated town and are all mobilized to fight the common enemy embodied by ISIS. That is a positive development and one which the United States should continue to support and, through that support, be the decisive edge these brave people need over ISIS.

[delrem]

2. If the US/Turkey alliance sacrificed the Kurds,

and the Kurds lived in peace before this shit hit them, what else can the Kurds do?

Of course, the USA in totally innocent of all this because there's always a D or R in charge, and there's no accounting for them.

[Uncle Joe]

3. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Comrade Grumpy.

[Comrade Grumpy]

4. "US, Turkey Agree to Keep Syrian Kurds Out of Proposed Border Zone"

Understanding meant to reassure Ankara government

http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-turkey-agree-to-keep-syrian-kurds-out-of-proposed-border-zone-1438641577

ISTANBUL—The U.S. and Turkey have reached an understanding meant to assure the Ankara government that plans to drive Islamic State militants from a proposed safe zone in northern Syria won’t clear the way for Kurdish fighters to move in.

Officials from both countries on Monday disclosed details of the discussions that grew out of Turkey’s recent decision to step up its cooperation with the U.S. in the fight against Islamic State.

The U.S.-led coalition fighting the extremist group has conducted numerous airstrikes over the past year to back the Kurdish YPG militia in northern Syria, which has proved to be the most effective ground force fighting Islamic State.

But the U.S.-allied Turkish government is embroiled in a decades-old conflict with its own Kurdish minority. Turkey has resisted working with the YPG out of concern that the militants are laying the groundwork for the creation of a new Kurdish nation along Syria’s northern border with Turkey.

Two weeks ago, Turkey agreed to launch airstrikes targeting Islamic State fighters in Syria and allow the U.S. to use bases on its soil for the first time to do the same. At Turkey’s urging, the U.S. agreed to use airstrikes to protect a border zone free of Islamic State and controlled by moderate Syrian rebels.

<snip>

With friends like Ankara...

[geek tragedy]

5. that part makes sense--they don't want the PKK to have an enclave to do its own

thing from.

But, Edrgogan continues to be train wreck overall

[Comrade Grumpy]

7. The Syrian Kurds (the PKK allies) already have huge enclaves along the border.

Like around Kobani.

There are also a bunch of Syrian Kurds on the west side of the protected zone. I'm thinking Erdogan doesn't want a unified, Kurdish controlled strip of northern Syria. Isolating those western Syrian Kurds would also weaken them and Assad as the rebels try to bear down on the Alawite core in Latakia.

[bemildred]

10. It's rich, really.

If Erdogan wants to keep the Kurds part of Syria, he will have to work with Assad. There isn't anyone else they are going to work with in Damascus. I'm not sure how much more wrapped up in your own bullshit Erdogan could get at this point.

He needs to worry about ISIS and PKK coming to visit in Turkey.

[geek tragedy]

6. "I'll take amazingly huge IF's for $25 Billion, Alex."

the government of President Bashar al-Assad could be a partner if it commits itself to a democratic future.

That essentially means Assad leaving power, or granting Kurdish autonomy. Not much of a future for Assad in Syria in a democratic system.

[Comrade Grumpy]

8. Assad has already pretty much granted them autonomy.

They didn't rise up in revolt in 2011.

And it seems like they already work with Assad on a limited basis.

There's not going to be a "democratic" system in Syria any time in the foreseeable future.

[AngryAmish]

9. There will never be a western system of government over their

They are not western. And the whole neocon "everyone is the same and craves freedom" crap notion is 180 degrees from the truth around there.

[geek tragedy]

11. Japan and Korea and Israel and Turkey itself

aren't western either.

Neither are South Africa or India.

[AngryAmish]

12. All of those nations, by and large, are monoethnic

Syria and Iraq are not. Plus they are very, very tribal.

[geek tragedy]

13. South Africa and India are monoethnic? nt

[AngryAmish]

14. ah, you got me there.

[Xithras]

15. The grand irony is that Assad had already committed Syria to a more democratic future.

Less than a year after the uprising started, Assad proposed a constitutional update that would have made the nation more democratic. The proposal went to a popular vote, where it passed handily. That vote and update was REJECTED by the rebels and west, who wanted an interim military government to take over the nation.

Contrary to popular belief, Assad technically doesn't meet the definition of "dictator". He's the elected president of a nation that conveniently only allows one party to hold power, and that has no term limits. Because he's the head of his party, it means that he gets re-elected forever.

The constitutional update made two important changes. First, it would have allowed true multi-party elections. Any party representing any political position could have run for votes. Second, it limited the presidency to two terms.

Why was it rejected by the west? Because it allowed Assad to finish his then-current term, which would have ended in 2014, and because it didn't prohibit him from running and trying to win the Presidency in an open election (and Assad has a LOT of supporters in Syria). As Obama said, the west saw it as Assad's "time to go" and wanted him gone RIGHT THEN, and wasn't willing to even discuss idiotic concepts like "a peaceful and democratic transition of power." War is much more profitable and politically useful.

Assad has stated that he's still committed to implementing the democratic changes that were made to the Syrian constitution, but that they can't happen while the nation is still in open conflict and while ISIS controls half the country.