Last month, during violent clashes between Kurdish and Syrian forces, the United States delivered a shocking message to Syria’s Kurds: their partnership with Washington has “expired.” This was not just an expression of a change in priorities, but a clear signal that the United States was standing by Damascus and abandoning the Kurds at their most vulnerable moment.
For Kurds across the region watching the events unfold, the implications were profound. The United States is no longer perceived as a reliable partner or supporter of minorities.
This development is likely to affect not only the Kurdish community in Syria, but also those in Iraq, Turkiye, and Iran.
Concerns that marginalization will be repeated in Syria
U.S. support for Damascus under interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa paves the way for a centralized Syrian state, but the deal is viewed with deep suspicion by Kurds across the region. Their wariness is rooted in bitter historical experience.
Centralized states in the Middle East have historically marginalized, excluded, and assimilated Kurdish minorities. The prospect of such a regime emerging in Syria with US support represents a fundamental departure from Kurdish hopes for the region’s future.
The Assad regime’s approach to the Kurdish issue was built on systematic denial. Kurds were not recognized as a distinct group within the Syrian state structure. The state banned the public use of the Kurdish language and Kurdish names. Many Kurds were stripped of their citizenship.
While the January 16 al-Shalah presidential decree promised certain rights to Kurds, the January 30 agreement between Damascus and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) included limited recognition of Kurdish collective identity, including recognition of the “Kurdistan Region,” a term conspicuously absent from past Syrian political language and government documents.
Although these represent incremental gains, they are being developed within an interim government structure that aims at centralization as its ultimate goal. That is why Syrian Kurds continue to question whether the promises made today will be kept in the future.
Although there is a consensus among most Kurdish groups that armed resistance is not strategically viable at this stage, any future engagement with the United States will be viewed with distrust.
Possibility of rebuilding the Shiite-Kurdish alliance in Iraq
After years of power struggles between Shiites and Kurds in Iraq, both sides now view developments in Syria and potential changes in Iran with a shared sense of threat and common interests. If in 2003 the alliance between the two countries was driven by a common past of suffering under Saddam Hussein, it is now guided by a common future shaped by a fear of marginalization in the region.
At both the political and popular level, Shiite and Kurdish parties and communities have had much more in common in the past few weeks than in the past. This convergence is evident not only in elite political calculations but also in public sentiment across both communities.
For the first time in recent memory, neither Iraq’s Kurdish elites nor ordinary citizens are enthusiastic about regime change in Iran, a position that would have been unthinkable just a few weeks ago.
And last month, the Shiite Coordination Framework, a coalition of Iraq’s Shiite political parties, named Nouri al-Maliki as prime minister, the most powerful position in Iraq’s government. Notably, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), a powerful Kurdish political force, welcomed the nomination.
KDP’s support for al-Maliki was not only a response to anger over US policy in Syria. It was also rooted in Iraqi and Kurdish domestic politics. The endorsement is part of an ongoing conflict between the KDP and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) over the Kurdish-only Iraqi presidency. The KDP needs an ally in Baghdad to ensure that a KDP candidate, not a PUK, secures the position.
However, Washington may view a partnership between the KDP-led Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraq and the al-Maliki-led government in Baghdad or a similar government as not conducive to its interests in Iraq, particularly its efforts to curb Iranian influence.
Before assigning blame, the U.S. government should ask itself why the Kurds would be forced to take this position. The Kurdish position cannot be fully understood without factoring US policy into Syria into the discussion. From the Kurdish perspective, the United States is not a neutral arbiter in Syria.
Turkiye peace process
Over the past year, many believed that the sustainability of the peace process between Turkiye and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) depended on the resolution of the Kurdish issue in Syria and the fate of the SDF.
Violent clashes between Damascus and the SDF, backed by the Turkish and US governments, threatened to close the door to negotiations. Notably, however, not all streets were closed.
Currently, the two issues appear to be treated as separate files. Negotiations with the PKK are likely to continue within Turkiye borders, and importantly, PKK leaders have not translated their disappointment at the weakening of the SDF into a definitive refusal to hold talks with Ankara.
Underpinning this dynamic is the fact that the SDF has not been completely disbanded, leaving room for continued dialogue between Ankara and the PKK.
Iranian Kurds
Iranian Kurds are also far from Syria, but they observe events there and draw conclusions. The abandonment of the SDF reveals the unpredictable nature of US support for minorities in the region.
In light of this, and in view of the continued US incitement against the Iranian regime, it is extremely significant that Iran’s Kurds have collectively and deliberately decided not to be at the forefront of the recent protests or to allow themselves to be made into tools of Western media.
Iran’s Kurdish community is not enthusiastic about the possible return of Reza Pahlavi, who clearly has support from Washington, or the restoration of the shah’s equally repressive legacy. Iranian rebels, many of whom are based in the West, have not offered any further perspective on the Kurdish issue. There are widespread fears that the current government could be easily replaced by another regime with no guarantees for Kurdish rights.
Some Iranian Kurdish armed groups based in Iraq have actually carried out attacks on Iranian positions near the Iran-Iraq border. However, the main Iranian Kurdish armed groups chose not to engage directly or escalate militarily. Their calculations are based on the perceived endgame uncertainty of Israel and the United States and the reality that an escalation would trigger Iranian retaliation against Iraq’s Kurds.
With each abandonment of a Kurdish ally, the United States further erodes the foundations of trust on which local partnerships rest. The Kurds of Iraq and Syria have learned to live with the unreliability of the United States, but this arrangement may not last indefinitely. If it breaks down, it could have a significant impact on U.S. influence in the region.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.
