In the Kurdish areas of Syria, concern after the re-election of Erdogan

May 29, 2023

At the Qamichli market, concern prevails Monday after the re-election of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who regularly threatens to attack these areas under Kurdish administration in northern Syria.

“As Kurds, we did not want Erdogan to be re-elected,” Hozan Abu Bakr, owner of a clothing store who talks with his neighbors about the repercussions of the election in Turkey, told AFP in Kurdish.

“We wanted (the opposition candidate) Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, not because he is better, but because he had allied himself with the Kurds and maybe he is not as bad as Erdogan “, adds this man of 30 years.

Kurds in Turkey – around a fifth of that country’s 85 million people – voted mostly in favor of Mr. Kiliçdaroglu, the leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP, social democrat), defeated by Mr. Erdogan on Sunday.

Throughout the election campaign, Mr. Erdogan has repeatedly attacked his rival calling him a “terrorist”, because of the support given to him by officials of the pro-Kurdish HDP party.

People without a state, the Kurds are divided between Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran.

Thanks to the war in Syria, they established an autonomous administration in large areas of the north and north-east of that country.

But they are worried that the Turkish president will carry out his repeated threats to attack these Kurdish areas, and also fear a rapprochement between Damascus and Ankara for which they would pay the price.

Turkey has launched three offensives on Syrian soil since 2016 against Kurdish forces in the north, which have allowed it to control a 120 km long border strip on the Syrian side.

Ankara also carried out a campaign of raids against Kurdish fighters in northern Syria in November and threatened a ground offensive.

Turkey considers the Democratic Union Party (PYD) a “terrorist”, whose armed wing, the YPG, spearheaded the fight against the Islamic State group in northern Syria with the support of the United States, to Turkey’s chagrin.

Hizny Souleiman, another trader in the Qamichli market, confides “fear that Erdogan will attack the Kurdish people again”.

In front of his appliance store, Mohammad Achraf assures: “We don’t want to fight against Turkey (..) we just want to live in peace, especially since the whole region is at war.”

The peaceful uprising in Syria that degenerated into a civil war left more than half a million dead. Nearly half of Syrians are now refugees or internally displaced persons.

“Erdogan’s victory is undoubtedly a negative development for the Kurds, especially in Syria,” analyst Mutlu Civiroglu, a specialist in the Kurdish question, told AFP.

According to him, the Syrian Kurds will face “more drone attacks and the rise of Syrian armed groups supported by Turkey”.

“The Kurds are already in a difficult situation which will worsen, the government of Erdogan seeing the Kurds as a threat to national security”, continued Mr. Civiroglu.

Mr. Erdogan has tried in recent months to get closer to his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad, in particular thanks to Russian mediation, which, according to the analyst, constitutes “another concern for the Syrian Kurds”.

“We cannot predict Erdogan’s actions, but any rapprochement between him and Bashar al-Assad will be at the expense of the Kurds,” Saleh Muslim, who co-chairs the PYD, told AFP.

For his part, Mr. Assad demanded prior to any meeting with his counterpart the withdrawal of Turkish forces stationed in northern Syria under rebel control and the end of Ankara’s support for rebel groups opposed to Damascus.

“It looks like Erdogan will continue with his past policy, and we have to be ready for all eventualities,” he added.

He assures: “Erdogan’s plan is based on the eradication of Kurds everywhere, including Syrian Kurds if he can.”