Some of Syria’s 2.2 million Kurds in the northeast corner of Syria have taken another step towards the long-term dream of creating an independent state of “Kurdistan” by forming a local democratic administration aimed at rebuilding the area.
Stability is emerging amid the country’s civil war, with the residents of the area looking at rebuilding rather than bombing.
Local leaders have launched projects to revive normal life and encourage people to stay. They are creating a regional administration, producing cheap fuel, subsidizing seeds for crops and trying to restore electricity to an area that had lost power for nearly 24 hours a day. And so far they are fighting off the forces of both President Bashar al-Assad and the rebels who want to oust him.
The people now in control here are Kurds, an ethnic group that forms the majority of the population in parts of northern Syria, eastern Turkey, northern Iraq and western Iran.
“We have no power or water. Food is short. But before, our minds and spirits were repressed. Now our dreams are becoming reality. This is the Kurdish moment. Going back to the way we were is not an option. It would be a betrayal of those who sacrificed their lives,” a 30-year-old teacher, Hardin said.
Not Independence
For years the 30 million Kurds spread across those territories have been the world’s largest ethnic group without an independent homeland. Only the Kurds in Iraq, who displaced Iraqi forces in the 1990s when a U.S. and British no-fly zone was in place against Saddam Hussein, have managed to carve out an area of real autonomy.
On Tuesday, on the eve of peace talks in Switzerland, Kurds in Syria declared a provincial government in the area. The move came after international powers denied their request to send a separate delegation to the peace talks.
Local leaders insist they have no plans for secession but say they are preparing a local constitution and aim to hold elections early this year. This is not independence but “local democratic administration,” they say.
Both Damascus and neighbouring Turkey fear the Kurds’ growing autonomy will pave the way for secession.