Syrian Kurds - Working for or against Assad?
Monday, August 20, 2012
Syrian Kurds overran and now occupy several towns in Syria. This worries Syrian Arabs (both the government and the resistance) to no end. As we've talked about before, the stateless Kurds want their own country and continue to cause problems for Turkey (Iranian back Kurds), Iraqi insurgent forces (US backed Kurds), and Syria (the jury is out on which side they are on).
...The attacks marked the first time since the 17-month-old uprising began that Kurdish fighters had joined in military action against Assad’s forces. But the Kurdish muscle-flexing has rattled groups such as the Arab-led Free Syrian Army, which until now has played the leading role in the upheaval, and it has unsettled neighboring Turkey, whose animosity toward Assad is surpassed only by apprehension about the Kurds’ broader ambitions in the region...
Turkey is talking about getting involved in order to keep the Kurds down in Syria. Sec of State Hillary Clinton agrees if the Kurds become like the Iranian backed PKK (and launch attacks into Turkey from Syrian bases). And some believe that the Kurds are in league with Assad in order to gain some rights in their territories.
Clear?
Hardly.
This from the VOA sums it up nicely, though:
...Altogether the Kurds number about 30 million, spread across parts of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. Their aspirations trouble the central governments of those countries. Syria's Kurds, surrounded by conflict, are in a delicate position. But the war has given them a new freedom that they vow never to surrender.