Syria has been shaken in the last week by images that have shuddered the international community again and sowing the doubt about the practices of the new Islamist court that overthrew the dictator Baschar al Assad dictator. , with numerous civilians executed, in which the interim executive of President Ahmed al-Sharaa has labeled the insurrection of loyal forces to Assad.
While on Monday -where most of the minority community lives to which the Assad, the Alauitas, or was the only Naval Base in Russia in the Mediterranean -, an important signature took place in Damascus. A historical rubric that has multiple readings. From war and economic to historical and cultural, through human rights.
The Kurds have sealed a peace agreement with the Islamists who knocked down the dictatorship that involves the integration of the semi -autonomous territory of the Northeast, as well as the militiamen of the Democratic Syrian forces (FSD) in the new regular Syrian army. Also of its important natural resources and key infrastructure. In this way, the new Syrian state turns off one of the greatest fires that could extend in a country still unified and does what the Assad never fulfilled with the promise in the middle of the civil war. Supposedly, all their civil and constitutional rights will be recognized.
The ‘small print’ of this peace agreement worked for weeks based on contacts and negotiations is in the six points that articulate the pact whose seal was represented in the firm between the interim Syrian president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, and the commander of the Kurdosirias forces and the already extinct FSD, Mazlum Abdi. This is what each of the parties earns, what it means and the scenario from where it came from.
Integration of the territory in the Syrian state: control of oil fields, borders and prisons
The first of the six agreed points is the one that absorbs the parallel structure that the Kurdish authorities have created and maintained in the last decade, during the Syrian Civil War and after the conflict fought against the Islamic State. When Assad was totally cornered by the progress without a brake of a Dáesh that established one of its capitals in the Syrian city of Raqqa -the other was erected in Iraq, in Mosul -, it opened to the Kurdish militias administering a kind of semi -autonomous territory, allowing education to be imparted in their own language and similar measures.
With the thrust of the Kurdish militias of the YPG, the protection units of the Kurdo people, – which in their day supported even the US, with the manifest rejection of its Turkish ally – from the battle of Kobani (the famous resistance of Kobane, in which the role of women on the battlefield) was essential, they managed to advance and harvest a series of successes that allowed the Islamic State to be expelled Raqa. In that same city, the Kurds maintain the control and custody of the prisons that house thousands of prisoners of the Islamic State. Even overcrowd with their relatives. Women and children.
One of the main alarms that jumped when the Islamist forces defeated Assad in Damascus was the sudden movement that occurred in the Northeast. In those provinces of Al Hasaka, Al Raqa and deir to the Zur. Three months ago, the FSD began receiving the sending of a group of Islamist rebel forces – an adjustment to which the regime overthrew – that had the support of Türkiye. Series of attacks against the strategic prey of Tishrin that was increasingly costing to repel and in which a.
The FSD came to denounce that the intention of the Türkiye of Erdogan was to annex the southern part. In part, because a semi -autonomous territory in the Northeast Syrian is a refuge for the insurgency of the Turkish Kurds, the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party), a terrorist organization that after 40 decades put an end last week to the armed struggle.
Thus, by virtue of the agreement it has been agreed to “integrate all the civil and military institutions of the Northeast of Syria in the administration of the Syrian state, including border crossings, airport and oil and gas deposits.” And they will not waste time in this matter. After signing the agreement on Monday, it was announced that a convoy of the regular Syrian army and the Kurds was directed to the area for the transfer of powers and the control of gas and oil deposits.
Integration in the Syrian Army: towards the total unification
Of all the duties that the Syrian Transition Government has pending, one of the greatest gaps is in the broad number of factions and militias that live in a Syria made Jirones from the civil war. The FSD make up one of the greatest groups of this type – in addition to one of the most experienced on the battlefield – and now they will nurture the ranks of the unified Syrian army and will therefore respond to the Ministry of Defense of Syria.
In addition, they also commit to defend and support “the Syrian State in its fight against the Al Assad regime and all threats against their safety and unity.” From the first moment, this was one of the points that focused the negotiations, aware that the Islamists that could end up making the same mistake of the Assad, not trying to gain a control with a homogeneous army, despite the differences of its members. And the latter is key. The FSD are not only made up of Kurds, there are also the presence of Christians and Assyrians.
What do Kurds receive?: High on fire, peace, rights and recognition
Another of the points of the agreement establishes that “a high fire in all Syrian territories” is imposed, precisely in allusion to one of the points where fighting were continued. However, very few escapes that the first two points of this agreement involve giving in economic resources, key services and strategic positions. But it is not only in exchange for peace or that purpose of hostilities.
For the first time in Syria, the “right to citizenship and all their constitutional rights” are recognized, totally prohibited issues in the dictatorship, despite Assad’s promises when he needed them in military terms. But not just that. The Kurds will have guaranteed “representation and participation in the political process and in all state institutions based on their competence, regardless of their religious and ethnic origin.”
But the key is in the following statement that includes the text of the Covenant: “The Kurdish community is an indigenous community of the Syrian State, and the Syrian State guarantees its right to citizenship and all its constitutional rights.” This means that Kurds should be recognized as a people that are part of Syria and that they have the right to citizens with that premise. A movement that deeply reminds the change of aspirations by the community and the struggle of the Kurds in Türkiye. And that connects with what happened in Syria.
Why now?: The historical step of the PKK
While in recent months there have been approaches and negotiations in a more or less regular way, the reality is that this covenant has been questioned on numerous occasions. In fact, what has happened in Türkiye would have been a determining element that the agreement between the Kurds and Damascus was sealted. This is, from the prison in which it has been in 1999, to end the armed struggle. That is, in one way or another, the end of the Kurdoturca insurgency has sentenced the Kurdish insurgency.
Öcalan opted for a new way focused on politics and that focuses on achieving recognition of rights and a certain degree of autonomy of the Kurds, without aspiring to achieve the dream of having their own territory -the Kurds are a town without a nation of what they call Kurdistan, a region that extends by parts of Syria, Türkiye or Iraq-. This new approach would go to agreements with Erdogan’s agreements so that the Prokurdo De Dem party does not suffer the usual harassment and violent or mortal attacks where they attend the elections.
But, as with everything that happens in the region, other background elements underlie. The main is that the party of Justice and Development (AKP) of Erdogan no longer enjoys the same support rates as in the past and the Turkish president aspires to make a change that requires a large majority. In an attempt to make it legal to be more time in power, Erdogan seeks to promote a constitutional change that ends the limitation of mandates.
