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Iraqi Kurdistan\u2019s referendum sparked furious opposition from Iraq\u2019s government, as well as Iran and Turkey, who fear it will fuel secessionist movements among their own Kurdish minorities and dismantle the map of the Fertile Crescent in place since World War I. There was also a backlash from the Arabs. Lebanon\u2019s Hezbollah accused the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Israel \u2014 the only state to support Kurdish independence \u2014 of manipulating Kurds to start another war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Syrian Kurdish leaders say their vision is for a federal system across Syria that would maintain unity while giving considerable autonomy to various regions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They depict their proposal as a way out of the country\u2019s intractable 7-year-old civil war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a first, President Bashar Assad\u2019s government said it may be ready to talk to the Kurds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Syria\u2019s Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem recently noted Syria\u2019s Kurds want \u201csome form of self-administration\u201d within Syria unlike Iraqi Kurds\u2019 push for independence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is something negotiable and can be discussed. When we are done with fighting Daesh, we can sit with our Kurdish sons and find a formula for the future,\u201d he said, using the Arabic acronym for IS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
llham Ahmed, a senior Kurdish official in the political wing of the SDF, said the government statement can be a starting point toward negotiations, underlining that the federal proposal is not for the Kurds alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Kurds \u201chave become the dark horse that can\u2019t be overlooked or excluded like in the past. We will be participating practically in the political process and we will be influential.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Syrian government is far from ready to share power, bolstered by battlefield victories and unwavering Russian and Iranian backing. Still its position is not secure, with local cease-fires on various fronts liable to crumble and a growing presence of regional and international forces on its territory. The Kurds represent an indisputable interlocutor amid a fragmented opposition, otherwise dominated by Islamists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Syria\u2019s Kurds could face a looming confrontation with Turkey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ankara views the Syrian PYD as an extension of Turkey\u2019s own Kurdish insurgency led by the Kurdistan Workers\u2019 Party, or PKK, and is determined to avert Kurdish power next door. Last year, its troops captured a pocket of territory inside Syria to prevent a contiguous Kurdish hold along the frontier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Turkish forces, with Syrian allies, have skirmished with Kurdish forces holding the northwestern town of Afrin. And Turkey announced Saturday it was launching an operation in the nearby Idlib province, controlled by al-Qaida-linked fighters, in part to push Kurdish expansion there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, a race is on between the U.S. and the Kurds on one side and the Syria-Russia-Iran alliance on the other for the oil-rich, eastern province of Deir el-Zour. Each side is fighting to take back as much territory as it can from IS. That race could determine the borders of a Kurdish-administrated area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The drive is also a competition between the Americans and Iran to grab influence in Syria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe United States can limit Iran\u2019s freedom of action in the region by becoming a major patron for the Kurds,\u201d while trying to be \u201cpolite with Turkey,\u201d Joshua Landis, a Syria expert and professor at the University of Oklahoma, said recently to Syria Direct.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Syria\u2019s PYD is ideologically affiliated with the Turkish Kurdish PKK, inspired by its leader Abdullah Ocalan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For almost 20 years, Ocalan found refuge in Syria until Damascus expelled him in 1998. He has been imprisoned in Turkey since but is omnipresent in northern Syria. Affectionately referred to as \u201cApo,\u201d or uncle, Ocalan\u2019s vision mixing Marxism, social egalitarianism and a revolution of women who share leadership roles with men remains common parlance among Kurdish fighters and officials. Graffiti about women\u2019s liberation and the imprisoned Ocalan are pervasive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Washington found in the secular-leaning, disciplined fighters its main leverage in Syria. It advised them to rebrand to distance themselves from the PKK. U.S. Army General Raymond Thomas, head of Special Operations Command, described it as a \u201cstroke of brilliance\u201d to include democracy in their new name: the Syrian Democratic Forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mazloum Kobani, the Kurdish commander who leads the SDF and coined the name, warned that without Washington\u2019s political support for the federation idea, gains in the fight against ISIS may be lost. He said the government and its allied Shiite militias remain a \u201cthreat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe don\u2019t want to fight with anyone, but we will defend ourselves,\u201d he told the Al-Monitor news site in September in his first comments to the press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The challenges are also internal as Kurdish communities remain split.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The ruling party of Iraq\u2019s Kurdish zone has long cultivated ties with Ankara, the main enemy of Syria\u2019s PYD. Land-locked Iraqi Kurdistan depends on Turkey for access to the outside world for its oil. When the PYD first set up its self-rule administration early in Syria\u2019s war, Iraqi Kurds closed their border with Rojava.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some believed the rivalry would ease with Turkey\u2019s opposition to the Iraqi Kurdish referendum. But Iraqi Kurds are unlikely to further aggravate Ankara by softening their stance toward their Syrian counterparts. Days after the referendum, Syrian Kurdish officials from Europe trying to attend a PYD conference in Syria were denied entry at the Iraq crossing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The PYD\u2019s internal rival, the once powerful Kurdish National Council, has allied with the Iraqi Kurds\u2019 ruling party and refused to participate in the self-administration project. Many of its members now live in Iraq\u2019s Irbil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Khaled Ali, an opposition member in Irbil, said his family had to take one of their youngest members out of Rojava before high school fearing he would be recruited by the militia. \u201cThere is excessive militarization of society,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, confidence in the future is palpable in Rojava. Resources have poured in to rebuild destroyed towns like Kobani. Oil revenues from fields seized from IS and the government have boosted the administration\u2019s coffers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hassan, the 29-year old Kurdish teacher, said the new Rojava University will open in November with 400 students. Kurdish language teaching will be as high a priority as training engineers and doctors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While he is concerned some of his colleagues who rose to power may \u201cbecome corrupt,\u201d he believes the administration will correct course, guided by Apo\u2019s views and \u201cthe sacrifices of martyrs.\u201d And maybe work with other Kurdish parties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis administration would be weakened if it remained alone.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Syrian Kurdish leaders say their vision is for a federal system across Syria that would maintain unity while giving considerable autonomy to various regions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":62332,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":8,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[8,12],"tags":[],"coauthors":[1213],"class_list":["post-31027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-flashpoints","category-news"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"LOHNKBHDRFDYZEZVLT6AKNON5Y","arc_canonical_url":"\/flashpoints\/2017\/10\/08\/its-not-independence-but-syrias-kurds-entrench-self-rule\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/AP360957409143.jpg.jpg\")