Syrian Kurdish parties struggle to unify and negotiate with Damascus

ERBIL — Top Kurdish leaders met in northeastern Syria on December 23 in the hopes of forming a unified political delegation to negotiate with the transitional government in Damascus regarding the rights, demands and future of Kurds in a post-Assad Syria. When the meeting in Hasakah city, attended by members of the United States (US)-led international coalition, came to a close, the opposing sides were no closer to an agreement.  

After the meeting—between Mazloum Abdi, commander-in-chief of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), and the Presidency of the Kurdish National Council (KNC)—the SDF put out only a brief statement. The attendees had “agreed on the importance of continuing meetings quickly to resolve contentious issues,” it said, without elaborating on the points of disagreement. 

“A unified Kurdish delegation cannot be formed in one meeting, because common ground must first be established, as well as agreement on many points,” Fasla Youssef, a member of the KNC Presidency, told Syria Direct. “Important points” were discussed at the December 23 meeting, she added, without explaining further. 

“The Kurdish community in Syria has a unique characteristic in its political and social organization—it includes dozens of parties and political movements,” Parwin Youssef, the co-chair of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), told Syria Direct. While this “pluralism reflects the community’s vitality, it imposes challenges to achieving a unified vision.”

Calls to unify

With the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime on December 8, Kurdish voices emerged in northeastern Syria calling for internal political dialogue to resume, overcome differences between different parties and form a single delegation to represent Syria’s Kurds. 

A unified political position has long been a “popular Kurdish demand,” Kamal Najem, a writer and poet living in Rumeilan, a city east of Hasakah’s Qamishli city, said. However, “the motives for realizing it have greatly multiplied, turning it from merely a popular demand to a fateful decision on which Kurds’ future in Syria depends,” he added. If rival political bodies cannot unify, Kurds risk losing constitutional recognition of their presence and national, political and cultural rights, he fears. 

All Kurdish political bodies, without exception, must “reassess their positions, affiliations and loyalties, making all possible concessions in order to build a shared Kurdish position and formulate a clear, shared vision of the future and Kurds’ demands and rights in the new Syria,” Najam added. 

Kurdish-Kurdish dialogue in Syria involves two main blocs. On one side, there are the Kurdish National Unity Parties, 25 political parties including the PYD, the civil wing of the SDF, which founded the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES). Across the table, there is the KNC in Syria, which includes 12 parties and political organizations. 

Disputes between these two blocs stretch back for years. They hold different positions on many issues, most notably over each body’s political and ideological leanings, the PYD’s dominance over the political and military scene in northeastern Syria and the KNC’s accusations that the PYD marginalizes other Kurdish parties by attacking their headquarters and imprisoning their supporters. 

Each side accuses the other of being loyal to foreign powers and incapable of making independent decisions. For the PYD, this refers to the party’s links to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Turkey. For the KNC, it refers to it being represented in the Istanbul-based National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces, which is accused of being subordinate to Turkey. 

Despite repeated international efforts to bring the two sides together, direct dialogue has been stalled since 2020, when a US-sponsored meeting was held at a military base near Hasakah city. 

After the regime fell, the US and France initiated efforts to resume dialogue under the supervision of the international coalition and the SDF. Several meetings have been held between the PYD-led Kurdish National Unity Parties and the KNC to form a united vision and demands. 

A French delegation recently met with PYD-led parties on December 24 in Qamishli to expedite dialogue with the KNC. So far, these efforts have not made significant progress towards bringing Syrian Kurdish parties or their perspectives closer together. 

The lack of an agreement so far worries Syrian Kurds, “who seek a broad political framework representing all Kurds, especially in light of increasing Turkish threats and the existence of a new de facto government in Damascus whose general orientation towards the Kurds remains unknown,” Shoresh Darwish, a Kurdish writer and political researcher living in Germany, told Syria Direct. 

The Military Operations Department sought to reassure Kurds and religious minorities during its offensive that ended in the overthrow of the regime. Still, many fear a repeat of what happened in Afrin, a region of northwestern Aleppo province where Turkish-backed factions committed abuses against the Kurdish-majority population after taking over in 2018. 

Bassam al-Ahmad, the executive director of Syrians for Truth and Justice (STJ), a human rights organization documenting violations in Syria, expressed regret at the “delay in resuming Kurdish-Kurdish dialogue.” The delay in reaching an agreement “does not serve the interests of Kurds or all Syrians,” he said. 

Internal Kurdish dialogue, while critical, is not enough, al-Ahmad added. “There are larger dialogues that must take place—Arab-Arab dialogue in northeastern Syria and Syrian-Syrian dialogue,” he added. “Kurdish dialogue has no value without an inclusive Syrian dialogue.” 

Roots of the dispute

Brewin Youssef, of the PYD, contended “the KNC lacks independent political will, as its decisions are subject to the dictates of Turkey and the National Coalition,” a situation that would “disrupt any serious step towards unifying Kurdish ranks.” 

She accused the KNC of being “tied to foreign interests and agendas, especially Turkey’s, which makes it difficult to achieve real consensus.” A lack of common political will and “weak independence in decision-making is one of the main obstacles,” she added.

On the other side, Fasla Youssef of the KNC pointed to ties between the PYD and the PKK, arguing it is not possible to reach an agreement and form a joint Kurdish delegation without the PKK leaving Syria. The end of any PKK presence would “help stop Turkish threats and invalidate the arguments used by Turkey’s opposition factions [the Syrian National Army (SNA)] for attacking northeastern Syria,” she said. 

In response, the PYD’s Youssef said members of the PKK “answered the call of humanity during the battle to liberate Kobani from IS terrorism in 2014.” Today, “Turkish decisions prevent them from returning to their homes,” making it necessary to “negotiate with the Turkish state to resolve” this issue, which does not involve the KNC, she added. 

Links between Syrian Kurds and the PKK—designated as a terrorist organization by both Turkey and the US—are a “natural relationship,” Youssef said, based on “the shared national dimension.” As Kurds’ presence extends “across the borders of four countries [Syria, Iraq, Iran and Turkey], communication and coordination with all Kurdistan’s parties is legitimate,” she added. 

For his part, Germany-based writer and analyst Darwish attributed Syrian Kurdish political bodies’ inability to reach an agreement so far to “their conflicting readings of the situation, and their focus on details without being able to find a formula for mutual concessions,” perhaps due to “weak independence.” 

“The parties’ internal factors, and their polarization, prevents them from reaching a serious understanding and action plan commensurate with the major developments after the fall of the Assad regime,” Darwish added, regardless of international pressure. 

All Kurdish political bodies “are reading the moment wrong, preferring waiting over taking a step towards forming an inclusive political umbrella,” he said. 

Solo negotiations

While an internal Kurdish consensus remains out of reach, some KNC figures are holding meetings with other Syrian political components, seeking to build relationships and “convey the KNC’s point of view” to diplomatic and political figures in Damascus, Fasla Youssef said. 

For its part, the PYD plans to hold an inclusive Kurdish national conference for all political actors to form “a basis for unifying the Kurdish vision, from which a joint delegation could emerge to represent Kurds in negotiations with Damascus,” Brewin Youssef said. 

However, if it is not possible to form a single delegation, neither the PYD nor the KNC rule out the possibility of negotiating with Damascus individually, both sources said. 

Darwish warned against this option. “Each party will claim to represent the Kurds, and we will enter a cycle of outbidding and rejecting what is being achieved politically in Damascus,” he said. In that scenario, countries in the region “could exploit this gap in the Kurdish political process, supporting one side against another according to their interests,” he added.

At the current stage, the focus should be on “the political situation today, which forces [Kurdish] parties to form a political body under any name, leaving the issue of administering [northeastern Syria] to the side, and not discussing the reasons previous political unification measures, which were based on power-sharing, failed,” Darwish argued. 

The priority is to “go to Damascus and form alliances with Syrian national and democratic forces,” he added. Kurdish forces outside Syria should also push for a unified political entity “that prioritizes the interests of Syria’s Kurds and aligns with the country’s need for change and a democratic transition,” he added. 

Disagreement is natural, but untenable under the current circumstances, Darwish said. “There is no problem with disagreeing once the Syrian Kurdish issue is secured and their fundamental national rights are ensured during the upcoming political and constitutional process,” he said. 

Failing to come together, or reaching Damascus too late, would risk “excluding Kurdish demands in Syria,” he warned, jeopardizing the rights of “around two million Syrians.”

This report was originally published in Arabic and translated into English by Mateo Nelson.