Syrian Kurds declare transitional administration

The PYD's Saleh Muslim and a map showing "Rojava" along Syria's border with Turkay

Syrian Kurds yesterday declared an interim administration in northeastern parts of the country (Rojava), further solidifying their geographic and political presence after driving out radical Islamist rebels. 

Long oppressed under Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his father before him, Kurds view the Syria war as an opportunity to gain more autonomy -- like their ethnic kin in neighboring Iraq. 

Control over Syria's northeast, where Kurds predominate, had in recent months swung back and forth between them and mainly Arab Islamist rebels, who strongly oppose what they suspect are Kurdish plans to secede.

But a Kurdish militia prevailed earlier this month, and at a meeting held in the Syrian city of Qamishli yesterday, a committee of Kurdish and other groups said it was now time to set up an administrative body to run the region. 

"In light of the current circumstances which Syria is going through, and in order to fill an administrative vacuum... we see it as an utmost necessity to reach a transitional, pluralistic, democratic administration," said a statement sent to Reuters.

The statement said they were committed to the unity of Syria and asked world powers and neighboring countries to back the new administration, which they said had won the support of different political groups and minorities in the area.

The dominant force on the ground in Syria's Kurdish areas is the Democratic Union Party (PYD), which has a well-trained militia and is affiliated with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

The PYD's growing clout has also dismayed some fellow Kurds, who accuse it of being in league with Assad and seeking to replace his authoritarian one-party rule with its own.

PYD representative Mohammed Reso said some Syrian Kurdish parties had refused to sign up to the plan.

Davutoglu

In his first remarks after the declaration of the interim administration, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu accused the PYD of "not keeping its promise."

"We told them to avoid a de facto administration declaration that could divide Syria. We told them to put a distance between themselves and the [al-Assad] regime," Davutoglu said during a live interview on private broadcaster NTV on Tuesday. 

He criticized the Kurdish group for adopting an "ambivalent" posture. "The most serious mistake that the PYD is making is to put under pressure on the other Kurdish opposition groups in [their] controlled areas. We receive a lot of complaints from Kurds [in northern Syria], and we hope they will change this attitude," Davutoglu added.

PYD leader Saleh Muslim had visited Turkey twice in a brief period in July and August as the open conflict between Kurdish militia groups and jihadist rebels mounted, causing a refugee outflow from Rojava. He reportedly discussed with Turkish officials PYD's plans of forming an autonomous administration that triggered concerns in Ankara.

Barzani

The Turkish government and Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) have adopted a similar attitude on the situation in northern Syria. Both oppose the PYD's creation of a politically autonomous entity in the region.

KRG leader Massoud Barzani is troubled by the disputes among Kurds, particularly between the PYD and other Kurdish parties, over the areas in Syria's north.

The Turkish government and Barzani also backed the Syrian Kurdish National Council (KNC), a group that agreed to join the main Syrian opposition body, the Syrian National Coalition of Revolutionary and Opposition Forces.

“The KNC is close to Barzani. Barzani wanted to impose his policies in Rojava and Turkey wanted to use Barzani to establish an alternative group to the PYD, which was the KNC. They tried hard, but failed. The KNC is not stronger than the PYD,” Iso said.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is expected to meet Barzani in Diyarbakir at the weekend.

According to Turkish media sources, Erdogan will visit Diyarbakir, a predominantly Kurdish city in southeastern Turkey on Saturday, when he will be meeting the Iraqi Kurdistan president.

A source from Turkish Channel Show TV said renowned Kurdish singer Shivan Perwer will be back to Diyarbakir from self-exile in Germany to meet Barzani and Erdogan.

Relations between Iraq’s Kurdistan Region and Turkey have been improving steadily of late.

The volume of trade between Iraq and Turkey is about $12 billion, with three quarters of it being between Ankara and the Kurdistan Region.

Iran

Writing for the Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat today, former editor-in-chief Tariq Alhomayed quotes a Reuters dispatch yesterday as saying the Kurds’ military gains in Syria is posing a dilemma for regional powers.

Syrian Kurds view Syria’s civil war as an opportunity to gain the kind of autonomy enjoyed by their ethnic kin in neighboring Iraq.

The seriousness of the report, says Alhomayed, is that their offensive has stirred mixed feelings, globally, regionally and locally, even among some fellow Kurds, who say the Kurdish fighters have drifted into an Iran-led regional axis supportive of Assad, something they deny.

To Assad and his Shiite allies, their gains mean more territory out of Sunni rebel hands two and a half years into a revolt against his rule.

Islamist rebels -- particularly the Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) that have been imposing their will across rebel-held territory -- argue that their defeat says more about who was helping their foes than the strength of the Kurdish forces themselves. They said help from Assad's forces and Shiite-led Iraq was the reason for Kurdish gains.

The Iraqi government strongly denies supporting any faction in Syria, including Kurds.

A closer reading of this and other reports shows the Kurds’ military gains in Syria are posing a bigger dilemma for Syrian Kurds than for regional powers.

A senior Iraqi politician told Reuters Shiite powerhouse Iran, Assad's main regional ally, was also actively backing the PYD and emboldening the PKK, with which it is closely aligned.

"Iran supports these groups to guarantee having a powerful group in Syria in case things go out of control," he said, adding that Tehran was creating a network of allies from minority groups across the country to bolster their interests and to create alternative partners should Assad fall.

The Iraqi politician said Baghdad's Shiite government was supporting the Kurds to weaken cross-border ties among Sunnis.

"(They) may help them in cooperation with Iran to create an autonomous Kurdish region ... to establish a buffer zone between Iraqi and Syrian Sunnis."

This of course means the Kurds will have hostile and unbalanced relations with a predominantly Sunni region.

Also, can Syria’s Kurds genuinely withstand Turkey’s ire and eventually that of Tehran, which is home to eight million Iranian Kurds?

Syrian Kurds are set to realize that you don’t build nation-states by simply having minorities go their separate ways.

Barzani and the Middle East’s new Kurdish player

Inset is Massoud Barzani, president of Iraqi Kurdistan

My paraphrasing of today's leader comment penned in Arabic by Ghassan Charbel, editor-in-chief of al-Hayat:

A new player has entered the terrible Middle East field, where regimes, governments, maps and minorities are either crumbling or shaking like a leaf.

That’s the Kurdish player.

In the last century, Kurds were roughed up in the game of nations, which dispersed them, independently of their will, as minorities in Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria.

Geography sentenced this people without the right to appeal, and history endorsed the ruling.

Today, we’re talking of nearly 25 million Kurds.

A decade ago many believed Kurds were destined to simply pass on story lines about their sufferings in rugged mountains and about scenes of Halabja and the Anfal Campaign.

Many also believed Kurds would forcibly swallow unjust Turkization and Arabization drives.

Denial of Kurdish rights was a fixed but tacit government policy clause in all four countries despite their claims to the contrary.

Suddenly, the crazy American adventure of invading Iraq brought this dirty game to a close.

The invasion would not have taken place had the Kurdish-Shiite alliance not made a pitch for toppling Saddam Hussein’s regime by any means and in whatever way possible.

That’s how the Shiites pocketed Baghdad and the Kurds bagged Iraqi Kurdistan under the federal constitutional republic of Iraq.

The Kurds have now had a decade of stability for the first time in their blood-soaked history.

They’re living under their own flag, though they’ve not ditched Iraq’s.

They teach their children in their native tongue and sing their ballads in their squares. They are building roads and setting up universities. They are also attracting investors and tourists.

The past decade was full of scenes as well.

Massoud Mustafa Barzani is the elected president of the Iraqi Kurdistan region, managing it with the competence of a statesman after having led the Peshmerga with the astuteness of a freedom fighter-cum-politician.

Jalal Talabani sits in Saddam Hussein’s office as the president of Iraq.

Hoshyar Zebari shepherds Iraqi diplomacy, trying to uphold the interests of Iraq while walking a tightrope between America’s shadow and Iran’s clout.

Another scene is no less important.

The plane of someone named Recep Tayyip Erdogan landed in Erbil to open its international airport.

In a historic message, the visitor said the day when Kurdish rights were ignored is gone forever. Barzani struggled to conceal his delight, choosing instead to build on the phrase.

I asked Massoud Barzani about Erdogan’s Turkey and the Kurds of Abdullah Ocalan being on the same page now.

He acknowledged in his answer that he encouraged the two sides to bury the hatchet and seek a political solution.

He said success of the Turkey-PKK deal would be “a historic event inducing a sea change in the region.”

He said the two sides showed a sense of realism by kicking off implementation of the agreement to end a conflict that drained Kurds and Turks correspondingly.

I also asked Barzani if stability and prosperity in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region could incite Kurds in neighboring countries to use it as a template.

He replied: There is absolutely no need to clone the Kurdistan Region’s experience. There are circumstances, particularities, power balances and equilibriums. Chronic injustice should not stir up rashness.

“We’re not seeking to tear up maps and redraw borders. We don’t want clashes. We want to live in peace with the Turks, Arabs and Persians. We want to be a stability-and-prosperity factor.

“Surely, however, the times of usurped rights, exclusion and marginalization are defunct. Non-recognition of the ‘Other’ is a destructive culture.”

Barzani felt aggrieved by the mass killings and horrendous destruction in Syria, “which is on our doorstep.” He feared a prolonged split that would create an environment for extremists.

He precluded any role by Iraqi Kurdistan in arming Syria’s Kurds. He also hoped democracy and respect of all constituents would prevail in neighborly Syria.

Barzani refused to “personalize” his current dispute with Nouri al-Maliki, recognizing at the same time that links with Baghdad’s prevailing course of action were “nearing the point of no return.”

He stressed (Iraq’s) Kurds are not asking for more than a respect of the constitution and agreements signed, indicating at the same time that Baghdad’s course of action provoked a deep crisis with Iraq’s Arab Sunni component as well.

Turkey chose a new approach to deal with its Kurds.  Once the guns fall silent in Syria, its Kurdish component will be seated at the reconciliation table. Watching and waiting for their appointment will be Iran’s Kurds.

The triumph of Iraqi Kurdistan has helped change the way the ball bounces.

I asked Barzani, “What do the children of Peshmerga fighters yearn for?”

He grinned and replied, “They want computers, technologies, universities, job opportunities and hospitals. But, in this intricate Middle East, you have to remain on your guard. You must be prepared for war to ward it off.”

I asked, “Why do Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Nouri al-Maliki, Bashar al-Assad and Recep Tayyip Erdogan seemingly lack an esprit de corps?”

Barzani smiled again, saying only, “We want to turn borders into prospects to cooperate, not clash. We have to bank on human dignity, the economy and education. There’s no turning back.”

“Damascus July 18 bomber holed up in embassy”

The man who planted the bomb at the headquarters of the National Security Bureau (NSB) in Damascus on July 18 remains holed up in an embassy in the Syrian capital. His accomplice, who is privy to all details of the bombing, is in custody.

Isaiah, from the Ultimate Bible Picture Collection

The news is revealed today by Syria’s leading Lebanese media frontman Jean Aziz, writing for Syria’s Beirut mouthpiece daily al-Akhbar.

Aziz says the bomber was identified “within two hours of the blast.” CCTV cameras at and around NSB headquarters showed clearly how he carried out the operation. “Information gathered also showed a getaway car drive him immediately to one of two adjacent embassies in Damascus, one foreign and the other regional.”

Aziz suggests the July 18 bomb attack, which killed President Bashar al-Assad’s brother-in-law and Deputy Defense Minister Asef Shawkat, Defense Minister Gen. Daoud Rajha, former Defense Minister Hassan Turkomani and NSB chief Hisham Ikhtiar, was meant to trigger a drawn-out “coup operation that was planned meticulously and professionally.”

The first precursor of the plot, according to Aziz, was Gen. Manaf Tlass’ defection “on Monday, July 2, in the hope he would be given a role after the coup.”

Having failed to cripple the regime’s “chain of command and control,” says Aziz, the putschists fell back on their “Plan B” – namely, to blitz Aleppo “in the hope of forcing a Libyan scenario” in Syria.

Aziz, a Lebanese socio-political activist, journalist, university professor and talk show host, concludes:

“One thing is certain about the battle for Aleppo -- its outcome will only come to light after a relatively long while.

“Oppositionists are optimistic. They draw strength from the Turkish buildup and their supply routes from there. They are also cheered by the inflow of Jihadists.

“Loyalists are bullish about Iran’s stern warning to Ankara to keep out (of the fray) and a Kurdish role marginalizing Massoud Barzani.

“Whose optimism is well-founded?

“It’s impossible to tell.

“What’s obvious is that the battle for Aleppo would belie Isaiah’s prophecy, ‘Behold, Damascus will cease to be a city and will become a heap of ruins...’”

Is Iraq preparing to dump Assad?

Massoud Barzani (top) and Hoshyar Zebari

Has Iraq decided to turn its back on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad?

The $64,000 Question came hot on the heels of Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari’s address at the opening of the Syrian opposition groups’ conference in Cairo earlier this week.

Zebari, whose country currently holds the rotating presidency of the Arab League Summit, told the Cairo meeting the Syrian opposition “is trying to get rid of a totalitarian regime disregarding the (Syrian) people’s well-being.”

He also said, “We know from our experience in Iraq what it means to stand up to oppressive regimes.”

Zebari then called for a peaceful transition of power in Syria, pledging to help in that endeavor "so that representatives of the Syrian people take over their political process and build their modern Syrian state."

Zebari’s utterances suggest Iraq is perhaps pondering what lies ahead across its border, says senior diplomatic correspondent and political analyst Raghida Dergham today in her weekly think piece for the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat.

Writing about an alleged “international understanding on the exit of Assad and his kinsfolk in exchange for a regime reprieve,” she quotes an unnamed Iraqi official as saying off the record: “We concluded in light of our international contacts and first hand observations that developments on the ground are not going in the regime’s favor. Whole (Syrian) governorates are no more under central control. The government is one of shabiha and the military. Russia is having a dialogue with the opposition. Even Iran is opening channels for dialogue with the opposition. All this prompted us to take clearer and more assertive stands.”

A more comprehensive analysis of Iraq’s Syria reset comes from Syrian Kurdish analyst Farouk Hajji Mustafa.

“In truth,” he also writes for al-Hayat, “the reasons for the shift in Iraq’s diplomatic discourse can only be explained by two factors”:

1.    Multiple analyses have hinted at an understanding between Russia and the United States on the way to manage change in Syria. According to these analyses, “change would be conditional on a balance being struck between the influences of Saudi Arabia and Iran in the region.” The implication is that “Iran would lose its supremacy in Lebanon and Iraq in return for keeping the Syrian regime in place – manifestly at least – until year’s end 2014. This drove the Iraqis to change their tack and speak accordingly.”

2.  The Iraqi leaders’ internecine power struggle is the other explanation for Baghdad’s new discourse supportive of the Syrian opposition. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki could be telling Iran he would cross the aisle if it let him down. Alternatively, “the shift could be traced back to Massoud Barzani,” head of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq. In other words, “the new discourse could be expressing the view of the government in Erbil, not Baghdad.” Barzani has repeatedly warned Maliki he can change the power balance in Baghdad if it didn’t stop canoodling with Damascus. The KRG leader, in other words, has put Maliki on notice that he was putting his alliance with the Kurds at risk.

Hajji Mustafa says in either case the question remains: “Will Iraq keep up its new Syria pitch?”

Upping the ante: Turkey, Syria and the PKK

Erdogan and Barzani (file photo from zaman.com)

Turkey is grappling with Kurdish troubles spearheaded by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) both on its volatile 900-kilometer-long border with Syria and at home.

The PKK, which has been fighting for autonomy in Turkey’s chiefly Kurdish southeast region since 1984 and was banned by Damascus from operating within Syria's borders since the late 1990s, has lately been recruited by Syria’s embattled regime,

• to maintain a lid on unrest in Syrian-Kurdish areas or northeast Syria and preempt Syrian Kurds there from joining the Syrian opposition, and
• to hassle Turkey and act as a buffer force should Ankara decide to intervene, or carve a buffer zone, in Syria.

Turkish intelligence reports say up to 2,000 PKK militiamen -- many of them previously trained in Kandil, a major PKK camp in northern Iraq -- are already deployed in Syrian Kurdish areas near the borders with Turkey.

PKK acting leader Murat Karayilan this week told the Europe-based Firat News Agency, which is close to the PKK, that Turkey was preparing the groundwork for an intrusion in Syria. "The Turkish state is planning an intervention against our people," he said. "Let me state clearly: if the Turkish state intervenes against our people in western Kurdistan, all of Kurdistan will turn into a war zone."

Turkey, for its part, has responded by:

• Daring Syria. President Abdullah Gül warned Damascus not to play the PKK games. He told Britain’s Financial Times in an interview last November: “I would strongly suggest and expect that they will not get into such a dangerous game. Even though I do not think they would do that, we are still closely following the matter.”
• Doubling the size of its security forces along the border with Syria.
• Urging the opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) to co-opt Syria’s Kurdish groups, offering them a clear vision for the post-Assad era.
• Enlisting the help of Massoud Barzani, president of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region, in countering the threat of a Syria-PKK alliance.

At the same time, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government is said to have formulated a new Kurdish strategy.

Mohammad Noureddine, perhaps the most authoritative writer on Turkish affairs in the Arab press, today lists nine of the strategy items in a think piece for the Baghdad daily al-Sabah.

Under the new strategy, he reports, Ankara would:

1. Use no channel outside civil politics in trying to solve the Kurdish problem.
2. Exclude as interlocutors both Abdullah Öcalan, who is serving life on Imrali Island, in the Sea of Marmara, and PKK leaders based in Europe or Qandil Mountain.
3. Help Kurdish citizens in the southeast withstand pressure from the PKK and its purported urban wing known as the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK).
4. Address the Kurdish people directly, without intermediaries.
5. Seek solutions within the halls of the Turkish parliament. Talks would only be with duly elected Kurdish legislators.
6. Sustain military operations against the PKK.
7. Rule out any negotiations with the PKK before it disarms and hands its weapons to the government.
8. Exclude from the new constitution any reference to a Kurdish identity or autonomy arrangement. The new constitution would simply uphold human rights and citizens’ equality before the law.
9. Empower local authorities, with the proviso that governance will be based on state laws.

Noureddine -- a Turkey watcher for the past 30 years – concludes with a somber remark saying, “I don’t think this differs from what previous governments have been saying since the 1980 coup. In fact, this is a new coup against the spirit of reform embraced by the Justice and Development Party portending a black cloud in Turkish-Kurdish relations.”

Unite and win Kurds’ hearts, Syria uprising told

Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani (photo from cbc.ca)

Three political analysts flash three signal lights in today’s regional press – one red, one yellow and one green.

***

The “red” comes from Abdul Rahman al-Rashed, head of Alarabiya TV new channel. He says the Syrian opposition risks disappointing its people and aborting the Syrian revolution if it did not team up and unite.

“The scene before us looks odd. People are struggling to bring down the regime, but there is no heir,” he writes for the Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat. Disunity within opposition ranks “allowed the regime to trick and unnerve all nations, including governments eager to see the Damascus regime evaporate. Absence of a unified opposition allowed the regime to de-structure the population’s social fabric, isolate the insurgency, intensify its crackdown and frustrate the Arab League…”

Rashed says, “Russia, China and even the United States have all declined to recognize the opposition, saying they didn’t know which opposition to recognize.

“The Russians defied the Arab side backing the Syrian people to name a replacement (to the regime in place) agreed by Syrians in the opposition. The Arab states refused to boot out the regime from the Arab League because of the lack of a consensual substitute. Calls by organizations, groups and world figures, such as Senator John McCain, to arm the opposition failed…”

Rashed says the avowed intention of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member-states, which risked challenging the vicious Damascus regime and its ally in Tehran, is “to extend all forms of financial and material (including military) support to the opposition." Problem is they don't know "to which opposition: that in Doha, Ankara, Paris or elsewhere?”

“Were the opposition’s inability to unite continue in the coming weeks,” Rashed warns, “the opposition would have killed off the revolution and betrayed millions of Syrians” who look forward to the day when this “evil regime” passes through the gates of death.

***

The “yellow” light comes Lebanese political analyst Hazem Saghiyeh, writing for the Saudi-owned daily al-Hayat.

After the Syria resolution passed by Arab League foreign ministers at their meeting in Cairo on Sunday, he says, chances of the Syrian-Turkish front heating up have increased. This would complement regionalization of the Syrian crisis that has already brought in armed clashes in northern Lebanon, flows of Iranian and perhaps Lebanese combatants to fight alongside the Damascus regime and of Iraqi and other combatants to fight back alongside the insurgents.

Prospects of the Syrian-Turkish frontier igniting raise the issue of Syrian Kurds and their interconnection with the opposition. They also underscore the importance for the opposition to address and court the Syrian Kurds, “not only for national reasons, but for purposeful and practical reasons as well. Because Syria’s Kurdish district is close to the frontier with Turkey, Syrian Kurds could have an immeasurable influence on what happens there and in Syria’s second largest city, Aleppo.”

In other words, says Saghiyeh, co-opting the Syrian Kurds to invigorate the uprising requires “major concessions and assurances from both sides to overcome their mutual fears and suspicions.” It goes without saying, he adds, the (Syrian Arab) opposition majority needs to reassure the (Syrian Kurdish) minority first and not the other way round.

***

Dr. Othman Ali, who heads the Turkish-Kurdish Studies Center in Erbil, Iraq, flickers a “green” light in his centerpiece for Turkey’s English-language daily Today’s Zaman appropriately titled: “The struggle for the hearts of Kurds in Syria.”

He writes in part:

This new gain for the Syrian opposition was achieved after months of behind-the-scenes opposition diplomacy, intra-Kurdish negotiations and intervention from the U.S. and regional countries. This has resulted in the triumph of pro-U.S. and pro Massoud Barzani diplomacy over a pro-Iranian alternative supported by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

On Dec. 3, 2011, Salah Bayaziddi wrote in The Kurdish Globe: “Syrian Kurds have enough potential to play a major role in upcoming changes in this country and their political leverage should not be ignored.” Michael Weiss of the Henry Jackson Society, a London-based foreign policy think tank, wrote, “Kurds are to determine the success of Syria’s revolution.” He clearly pointed out, “It’s only with the support of Syria’s Kurds that the Syrian National Council (SNC) will be capable of earning the allegiance of a critical mass of the Syrian population.”

There is no exact data on the size of the Kurdish population in Syria, but the most conservative estimate puts their number at two million -- around 10 percent of the total population. This makes them as important as the Alawite minority, which has ruled Syria for decades. Kurds reside mostly in the north and northeast of the country, in proximity to the Kurdish population of Iraq and Turkey. Besides, both Aleppo and Damascus have a strong Kurdish presence. Their geographical location adds to their political weight in the country.

Syrian Kurds have the potential to be a revolutionary force against Assad’s regime… Nevertheless, for a multitude of reasons, the Kurds’ participation in the Syrian uprising over the last nine months has not been as strong as that of the Sunni Arabs, and their regions have remained relatively calm.

The groups representing Syria’s Kurds are divided among themselves, with some factions backed by Iraqi Kurds and others by Turkish Kurd members of the PKK. This division is very deep…

The PKK, fearing the growing influence of Turkey in the SNC and encouraged by Iran, has decided to repair its old alliance with the Syrian regime… According to confidential sources, it was the PKK’s armed group that killed Mishal Timo, a leading member of the SNC. The presence of strong pro-PKK elements in Aleppo accounts, for instance, for the lack of major opposition activities in the city. However, the PKK’s activities and policies seem to be running against strong resentment and resistance by local Kurds who have no sympathy for Assad’s regime.

Moreover, the alliance between the U.S., Turkey and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq has managed to mitigate the impact of the PKK among the Kurds in Syria to a considerable degree. During the last month, Iran invited top KRG officials to Iran and warned them against assisting the Syrian opposition. Nevertheless, Iraqi Kurdish leaders had to heed a much stronger pressure coming from Turkey and pro-U.S. allies. Massoud Barzani, president of the KRG, was the focus of this pressure. He met with Joe Biden, vice president of the US, Burhan Ghalioun, president of the SNC, and pro-Saudi Arab leaders from Lebanon, such as Samir Geagea and Walid Jumblatt. In addition, Barzani received several letters and telephone calls from regional leaders. All these visits and contacts were urging him to use his influence to encourage Syrian Kurds not to heed the PKK and Iran’s advice and to join the Syrian opposition in their struggle to topple the government.

Eventually Barzani was convinced to take the initiative of calling Syrian Kurdish parties to a meeting in Erbil in order to formulate a policy of coordination within the Syrian opposition. This meeting was held on January 28. The Conference of Syrian Kurdish Groups and Communities… agreed as a group to switch to a pro-Barzani stance and call for the fall of the regime. However, the final communiqué makes no reference to autonomy or a federation and has merely called to settle the Kurdish question in the post-Assad era through peaceful means and democratic, secular and decentralized government processes. Some analysts have attributed the moderate tone of the communiqué to Turkish influences and a deal that Barzani struck with SNC President Burhan Ghalioun, who preempted the conference by declaring for the first time, in a televised speech, “Syria’s new constitution will protect minorities and their rights, including the Kurds, who have suffered from discrimination…”