Kurds are threatened with losing power after the fall of Assad

After the fall of Assad

They could be the big losers in the new Syria

The takeover of power in Syria raises new questions, particularly for the Kurds in the north of the country. They face great danger from Turkey.

The consequences of the revolution in Syria cannot yet be estimated. But experts agree on one thing: the Kurds in northern Syria could be among the losers when the Islamist group Haiat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) came to power. Their autonomous structures are threatened.

And the overthrow of long-time ruler Bashar al-Assad could lead to greater influence for Turkey, not least because of the upcoming change of power in the USA. According to experts and Western government officials, the new President Donald Trump could reconsider support for the Kurds.

“The Kurds are in an awkward position,” says Joshua Landis, a Syria expert at the University of Oklahoma. Once the HTS has secured its power in Damascus, it will attempt to centralize the country. The situation in northern Syria is confusing. So far, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), led by the Kurdish YPG, have been supported primarily by the USA, but also by Germany in the fight against the extremist Islamic State – and relatively successfully, because IS is largely on the defensive.

Turkey, however, sees the YPG as part of the Kurdish Workers’ Party PKK, which has been waging an uprising against the Turkish state since 1984 and is classified as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the USA and other countries.

Therefore, the Syrian National Army (SNA), which is also hostile to the YPG, receives military support from Turkey. And in the days following Assad’s fall, the SNA made gains against the SDF.

This is one of the reasons why Federal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock traveled to Ankara on Friday to discuss the situation in northern Syria with the Turkish government. After a meeting with Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, the minister emphasized that all armed groups in Syria must be disarmed and integrated into state security structures. “This is also in the security interests of us and the international community as a whole,” said Baerbock at a subsequent press conference, although without Fidan. After the meeting with Baerbock, he simply said that the Kurdish groups in Syria had to be disarmed and broken up.

Baerbock, in turn, warned the Turkish government against military intervention in Syria. “The security of Kurds in particular is essential for a free and secure future for Syria,” she said. “And it was good to hear that the Turkish Foreign Minister also sees it that way.” This is also why she made it “very, very clear” in her talks in Ankara that our common security interests must not be jeopardized by an escalation with the Kurds in Syria.

The Kurds in Syria had been oppressed for years by Assad and his ruling Baath Party. Now is an opportunity to bring the fragmented country back together, Fanar al-Kait, a senior official in the Kurdish-led regional administration, told Reuters. However, he warned at the same time that the Turkish government had “very bad intentions.” At least that’s what statements from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan show, who, parallel to Baerbock’s visit to Ankara on Friday, called for the Kurdish groups in Syria to be wiped out.

Erdogan apparently also said to the USA that he expects foreign states to stop supporting the YPG, for example. A Turkish government official told Reuters that the cause of the conflict in northern Syria was not the actions of the government in Ankara, but rather that the PKK/YPG was a terrorist organization. “The PKK/YPG elements must lay down their arms and leave Syria,” he said.