Syria's Kurds recover footing as Al Shara's push for control falters

Six months ago, Syria’s Kurds struck a deal with Damascus under pressure from the US to end more than a decade of de facto autonomy in the resource-rich east of the country.

The administration of President Donald Trump was starting to accommodate Turkish interests in Syria, as part of improved ties with Ankara championed by Tom Barrack, the US ambassador to Turkey and special envoy to Syria.

“The United States did not want to see a weak central government in the new Syria, like in Iraq, which could not fight ISIS. This required ending the splits in the country,” a western diplomat said.

However, actions by Damascus since the March 10 deal, particularly the involvement of security forces after violence broke out in Sweida between Bedouin tribes and Druze fighters, may have swung the balance towards the Kurds in recent weeks. Hundreds of civilians, mainly Druze, were killed in the fighting in the southern province, near the border with Jordan.

Failure to resolve the Kurdish issue has also affected Syria’s relations with other countries, particularly the US, which last month appeared to soften its stance against a decentralised system in Syria.

Without the US, obtaining funds for the large-scale projects needed to rebuild Syria would be almost impossible, with the country devastated by civil war. Washington has about 2,000 soldiers in Syria, mostly in eastern areas controlled by the mainly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which was set up in 2015 to fight against ISIS.

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In meetings arranged by Mr Barrack last month between senior Kurdish politician Ilham Ahmed, who is close to the SDF, and Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Al Shibani in Damascus, the central government maintained a hard line, a Kurdish source said.

“Al Shibani would turn up late and basically refuse to discuss anything except disbanding the SDF," he told The National. But the source added there were other items in the March 10 agreement to be discussed, such as ensuring the rights of all people in the east.

In a high-profile US gesture, Admiral Brad Cooper, the newly appointed head of the US Central Command, met last week with SDF chief Mazloum Abdi in eastern Syria. The meeting occurred as the SDF and Damascus traded accusations of attacks across the front lines between them, situated mostly at the Euphrates River.

In sign of increased Kurdish confidence, the SDF-controlled administration of the east this month scrapped deals with Damascus on the partial use of the Syrian government curriculum. Unlike the Kurdistan region of Iraq, large parts of eastern Syria under SDF control are inhabited by Arabs, who are members of tribes with kinship in the wider Middle East.

The Druze accused government forces of intervening in Sweida on the side of the Bedouin tribesmen. Syrian President Ahmad Al Shara faced criticism from supporters abroad, especially in Jordan, where many tribes are linked with Syria’s eastern tribes, a diplomat in Amman told The National.

But when tribes in the eastern Deir Ezzor province attacked SDF patrols last week, the tribes found little support from Damascus, the SDF official said. The attacks were a reaction to an SDF campaign of arrests targeting members of ISIS.

“Al Shara did not interfere, although the tribes wanted him to,” the official said. “He would have lost regional support.”

Mr Al Shara has been seeking to build ties with China and Russia, a sign that he is preparing to compensate for any loss of US support, Kurdish writer Hosheng Ossi said.

He added that a “rose-tinted” view that Turkey convinced Washington to take care of the Damascus government is changing, although Turkey remains the main player in Syria. In May, Ankara helped to start a normalisation process between Washington and Damascus, where the government is dominated by former members of the Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS) rebel group that toppled Bashar Al Assad's regime in December.

The downfall of the former president marked a Middle East realignment, depriving Russia and Iran of a satellite state. Mr Ossi said Washington must apply pressure on Damascus and Ankara to set up a system of self-administration for the provinces to ensure long-term stability in Syria. “This is how Syria started,” he said, referring to the carve-up of the country from the remnants of the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century.

Turkey regards the arming of Syria’s Kurds as a major threat, although it reached deals with Washington in 2016 to carve its own zone in Syria to check the expansion of the SDF. Thousands of Turkish soldiers remain in the country, to the ire of Israel. Turkey is the main supporter of Syria's new military.

But Turkish former prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Syria's Kurds should not be seen as a threat by Ankara and that ways can be found to integrate the SDF into the Syrian army.

However, he said "a problem" could develop between Turkey and the US if Ankara "feels the Americans are approaching Syria just to keep Syria weak or in crisis, or divided or decentralised", a scenario he believes would suit Israel.