ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — General Mazloum Abdi, top commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), has stated that non-Syrian cadres of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) based in northeast Syria (Rojava) have started leaving the region, a major development that could help to alleviate Turkey’s concerns about the Kurdish self-administration.
Abdi spoke to researchers from the International Crisis Group in mid-September for a report published on Thursday, and acknowledged the sacrifices that thousands of PKK fighters have made in the area since 2011, but accepted that their presence is a headache for his administration.
PKK cadres in the area are occupying highly powerful senior positions, according to the report, and are seen by some locals as foreigners and as a “shadow power structure with ultimate decision-making authority behind and beyond local governing entities, especially when it concerns security.”
“Through US mediation and as part of our talks with the other Kurdish groups … we agreed to gradually pull out all these non-Syrian cadres from their current positions, and ultimately from Syria,” Abdi told Crisis Group researchers.
“Today, we have over two hundred thousand Syrians enrolled in our civil and military institutions, and there is no real need for regional Kurdish support [non-Syrian PKK members]. We have not committed to a timeline for their full withdrawal but the process has already started and will continue.”
The tension between the SDF, and Ankara is a major obstacle to stability in the autonomous region, known by Kurds as Rojava, and is exacerbated by the PKK presence in the region, according to SDF officials.
But it appears that Abdi, who fought the Turkish state as a PKK fighter for over three decades, is now ready to settle differences with Ankara despite harsh rhetoric from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who invaded Rojava in October 2019 with the purported aim of clearing the area of the SDF.
Abdi’s overall message in speaking to Crisis Group appears to be directed at President-elect Joe Biden, who was the Democratic Party's presidential candidate at the time, advocating the continued presence of American troops on the ground in the region, to eventually secure a fair deal for Syrian Kurds with Damascus, to begin a detente with Ankara and to continue exerting pressure on the Islamic State (ISIS).
But to do that, the SDF and in particular its Kurdish component, the People’s Protection Units (YPG) has to resolve the PKK presence in the area as demanded by the Turks, the Americans, other Kurdish parties and even other SDF officials.
“As long as the YPG remains tied to the PKK through its ‘party cadres’, and as long as the latter remains in violent conflict with the Turkish state, fighting in northern Syria is unlikely to end,” the report said. “Today, the group seems cognisant of its inherent vulnerabilities and more inclined to propose arrangements that could stabilise the area.”
It is not clear if the withdrawal of PKK cadres from northeast Syria would assuage Turkey’s concerns but “it would be a new development, and highly significant if implemented.”
Deal with Damascus
Abdi stated that when Turkey attacked northeast Syria in October 2019, he went to Damascus in the hope of reaching an agreement with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, but the regime was ”not willing to compromise or provide any guarantees.”
But as soon as Damascus realised that the Trump administration were leaving a residual force behind to “protect the oil”, their tone changed and they agreed to send troops to the Gire Spi (Tel Abyad) area to defend the region against further Turkish aggression.
Despite this, Abdi believes the answer to disputes between Rojava and Damascus lies in international talks.
“We have been unsuccessfully trying for years to find a middle ground with Damascus. Today, we don’t think that a bilateral agreement is possible, and we believe that the status of the north east should be settled as part of an internationally guaranteed deal that would include all of Syria,” Abdi told Crisis Group.
ISIS threat
ISIS continues to pose a threat in the areas under SDF control by launching repeated attacks against SDF and civilians, in particular in the lower Euphrates valley.
Abdi said that since the Turkish invasion of October 2019, there have been 15 attempted prison breaks by ISIS prisoners held in SDF prisons across the region.
He warned that the lack of clear long-term strategy in fighting ISIS by the US-led coalition has created a dangerous situation on the ground, where locals have come to “tolerate ISIS operatives” in their communities.
“We partnered with the US on a mission: the enduring defeat of ISIS. That mission has not been fully achieved. It will require time and resources to contain the ISIS threat and reverse some of the drivers that led thousands of Syrians to join the group. The lack of local confidence in the sustainability of coalition efforts has led locals to tolerate ISIS operatives among them,” Abdi said.
The researchers, while emphasizing the important role the US troops were playing in stabilizing and preventing further attacks on SDF-controlled areas by local and regional forces, believe that a full US withdrawal from Rojava is inevitable but warn that “exiting precipitously could trigger a violent scramble for dominance, with Ankara, Damascus, Tehran’s militia allies or some combination thereof attempting to seize territory and resources from the SDF.”
“The US might not be insulated from the resulting chaos should it allow ISIS or other jihadists to reassert themselves,” they added.
The group states that any mediation between SDF and Ankara requires the US to play a critical role in bringing the Kurdish led administration into international-backed political talks on Syria, but adds that the SDF must address two concerns of Turkey: to end the presence of the PKK in the region and to halt attacks that emanate from its areas on Turkey and Turkish-backed forces, who occupy a stretch of land, as well as parts of northwest Syria.
Turkey should also consider dropping its veto over SDF inclusion in the UN-led Syria talks, as well as addressing “the property and security concerns of the indigenous population of areas it seized from the YPG by ending violations perpetrated by the armed groups it supports there, and allow the return of those who have been displaced as a result of its military operations.”
Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced by Turkish-backed operations in northern Syria, with widespread reports of looting in towns taken by Syrian proxies backed by Ankara.
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