SARAH GLYNN: KÚRDAR Í SÝRLANDI – THE END OF AN ERA – IN ENGLISH

Reglulega birti ég pistla Söruh Glynn, en hún starfar að málefnum Kúrda í Strassborg í Frakklandi.

Í pistlum sínum greinir hún stöðu Kúrda í Tyrklandi, Sýrlandi, Íran og Írak. Sarah Glynn hefur einstakt lag á því að koma mörgu til skila í fáum orðum. Og orðum sínum kemur hún á framfæri bæði í töluðu og rituðum máli.

Að þessu sinni er Sarah Glynn á svipuðum slóðum og í síðasta pistli sínum frá því í byrjun ágúst þar sem hún fylgir eftir “aðlögunarviðræðum” Kúrda við nýju stjórnina í Damaskus í Sýrlandi sem Vesturveldin og Ísrael komu a laggirnar þegar þeim loksins tókst að bola Assad forseta Sýrlands frá völdum í lok árs 2024 eftir blóðugt stríð í rúmlega hálfan annan áratug.

Nýju valdhafarnir í Damaskus eru harðlínu íslamskir trúmenn sem fáir hefðu trúað að vestræn ríki hefð stutt til valda. En eins og Sarah Glynn rekur í máli sínu hófst aðförin að Assad stjórninni sýrlensku með vestrænum stuðningi við íslömsk harðlínuöfl. Uppstytta varð þegar íslamistar urðu heldur of ásælnir í olíuna en eftir þeir voru kveðnir niður, einkum af Kúrdum, og þegar þeir nú hafa gerst kapítalismanum handgengnir og opnað fyrir fjárfestingar er komin upp draumastaða fyrir BNA og NATÓ ríkin. Þetta skýrir stuðninginn við hryðjuverkamanninn al-Jolani, sem nú gengst við eiginlegu nafni sínu, al-Sharaa, æðsta ráðamanni í Sýrlandi – að vísu í umboði erlendra herra sinna. Þetta eru að hluta til mín orð en um flest eru þau þó samhljóma því sem fram kemur í máli Söruh Glynn.

Hún er ekki bjartsýn fyrir hönd Kúrda í fyrrum sjálfstjórnarhéraði þeirra, Rojava, en bendir á að Kúrdar hafi ekki átt margra kosta völ eftir að Bandaríkin og Evrópuríkin sáu sér ekki legur hag í að veita Kúrdum stuðning – þótt takmarkaður væri – og aldrei svo mikinn að þeir gætu ógnað NATÓ vininum Tyrklandi.

Here you can read and listen to Sarah Glynn reporting on the „integration process“ in Syria. It is not an optimistic report but I have a feeling it is realistic:

The end of the SDF – the end of an era – News From Kurdistan

On Tuesday 25 August, Mazlum Abdi, General Commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), emerged from his latest meeting presided over by Syria’s interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa and announced – first in Arabic and then in Kurdish – the “completion of the integration process of our forces into the brigades of the Syrian army” and the consequent “dissolution of the SDF as an independent military force”.

Although presented as a success, it was a time of poignant reflection on what might have been. Undoubtedly, in arriving at this point, the SDF was not free from errors of judgement, as they themselves admit, however, once the United States and their allies (most notably the UK) had decided to hitch their waggon to al-Sharaa (then known as al-Jolani) and his Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, other outcomes became impossible. The picture became starkly clear back in January, when Israel and Syria signed an agreement in Paris that left Turkey free to dominate the greater part of the country and opened the way for al-Sharaa to attack the Kurdish-dominated Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria.

While Western support for the former al-Qaeda leader seems irrational, it is far from being without precedent. There is a consistent Western preference for conservative Islamists over groups that demand radical change to the capitalist status quo; and Western plans for regime change in Syria were initially focused on a massive transfer of arms and training to Islamist opposition groups in the CIA’s Timber Sycamore programme, which ran from 2013-2017.

Crucially, al-Sharaa owes his position to Turkish support, and to the reluctance of Western states to challenge Turkey’s wishes. Wider geopolitical upheavals in the Middle East and in Ukraine have only increased Turkey’s value in the eyes of Western powers and especially of Europe. While the Kurdish movement wants to transcend state borders, it has accepted the need to organise within individual states. However, Turkish control and oppression show no respect for national sovereignty.

Turkey has always opposed any Kurdish autonomy in the region and has insisted that the disbanding of the SDF is an integral part of the ongoing peace process with the PKK. The importance and the fragility of that process exerted its own pressure on the Kurdish movement in Syria, and events in Rojava cannot be understood outwith this context.

For Turkey, the new agreements with the PKK and the SDF offer the possibility of a strengthened regional dominance, further consolidating their importance within NATO.

With international support limited to a few nice-sounding soundbites, Syria’s Kurds have been forced to negotiate the best they can to salvage something from their hard-won fourteen years of autonomy. On the positive side, they have achieved a recognition that they never had under Assad, including restitution of citizenship rights; but they are now part of an autocratic regime dominated by misogyny and conservative Islam and in thrall to neoliberal economics and international exploitation. And there is widespread disappointment on the agreed compromise in two areas that the Kurds hold most dear – Kurdish language education and the future of the women’s defence forces, the YPJ.

Although Rojava’s Kurdish education system is continuing for this academic year, it was officially announced on Thursday that future education would be based on the plans set out in January’s presidential decree, with just three hours of Kurdish language teaching a week (the original decree stipulated two hours), and this only in areas where Kurds make up a significant part of the population. There will also be an option to study social subjects in Kurdish in the first changeover year, but not afterwards. The Syrian government presents their new system as very inclusive, but it will replace the mother-tongue education painstakingly constructed by the Kurds. And, of course, the curriculum in general will be dictated by the government: no more courses in jineology, Abdullah Öcalan’s women’s science. There is also nothing here for the other minorities who have been able to study in their own languages under the Kurdish-dominated Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria.

The YPJ, which played a leading role in the major battles against ISIS, has argued that they should continue to be part of the army, and that this is vital for the position of women more generally. But their latest statement makes clear that they have had to accept that al-Sharaa will not allow this to happen. The discussions now are about integrating the YPJ “as a distinct and organized force, into the structure of the Ministry of Interior”. There they are expected to concentrate on counterterrorism.

Mazlum Abdi and Ilhan Ahmed, the two lead negotiators on behalf of the Kurds, are being given roles within the administration in Damascus, where they will continue to advocate for Kurdish interests, but under the watchful eye of al-Sharaa and his men.

While Abdi described the integration process as complete, a report from Amy Austin Holmes, recently returned from a research tour of the region, paints a more complicated picture. She observes that currently well under half the former SDF fighters have been included in the new Syrian army brigades, and that those left out include Arab fighters who remained loyal to the SDF. She also describes how, when she visited Afrin with an escort of Kurdish security officers who are now officially integrated into the Syrian state, her escort was stripped of their weapons by the security forces in Afrin. The latter ostensibly serve the same government, but probably still retain loyalty to their former Turkish-backed militias.

Holmes also notes that “Several sources told me General Mazloum has been given to understand that he should no longer speak on behalf of all of northeast Syria — or even the SDF he’s commanded for a decade — but only on behalf of Kurds.” The multiethnic inclusion that helped to make North and East Syria the safest place in the region is another casualty of the new regime.

Sarah Glynn

Strasbourg 28 August 2026

Á eftirfarandi slóð má komast inn á síðu með safni undangenginna greina.

Here you can approach earlier reports:

https://newsfromkurdistan.wordpress.com/

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