The election of Joe Biden as the new President of the United States has been met with a generally positive reaction by Kurds in northeast Syria (Rojava), with many hoping the President-elect will be able to help them secure their rights in the country. Biden has taken pro-Kurdish stances in the past, but will they be turned into action when he takes office in January?
The US officially contacted Syrian Kurds when the Islamic State (ISIS, also known by its Arabic acronym Daesh) attacked the country in 2014. The newly-formed, US-led Global Coalition Against Daesh began militarily supporting the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in late 2014, asking them to form a new force made up of the different ethnicities that live in northern Syria.
The YPG formed the multi-ethnic Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in 2015, which includes Syriac and Arab armed groups. It was hoped that the formation of a multi-ethnic force would prevent attacks on the area from Turkey, which considers the YPG as the Syrian offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) – an armed group struggling for the increased cultural and political rights of Kurds within Turkey. The PKK is regarded as a terrorist organization by Ankara and its Western allies, including the United States.
Even so, outgoing US president Donald Trump described the SDF, Washington’s only ally on the ground against ISIS in Syria, as “good fighters”. The US has provided the SDF with military and humanitarian aid, as well as air and ground support during anti-ISIS operations.
Beyond the battlefield, recent American administrations have shown little in the way of political support for Kurds in Syria. Though Biden told the New York Times in December that the US must support Kurds in Turkey to defeat President Recep Tayyip Erdogan through elections, it is not yet clear if he will push Ankara and Damascus to allow Rojava officials to attend the talks on the future of Syria that they have so far been excluded from.
Congratulatory messages
Congratulations for Biden have poured in from world leaders and politicians, including Kurds.
Mazloum Abdi, general commander of the SDF which is militarily in control of Rojava, congratulated Biden and expressed hope that the incoming president will build a “better future” for all Syrians.
“We look forward to continued close cooperation with the United States to protect our gains in the fight against Daesh and build a better future for Syrians,” Abdi said on Twitter.
Elham Ahmed, president of the executive committee of the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), the SDF’s political wing, said: “I am looking forward to working with you. Nothing more joyful for us than seeing how democracies peacefully transition leadership through election not through conflict. With your help, new Syria can have a great democracy like the U.S.,” she said in her congratulatory tweet.
Among Rojava officials, only Abdi and Ahmed have publicly spoken about Biden’s election victory. Rudaw English reached out to Ahmed and several other NES officials for comment; some were unavailable, while others refused to offer comment beyond what has been said publicly.
Turkish president Erdogan issued a noticeably delayed response, only congratulating Biden three days after he was officially declared the election’s victor.
No major changes
James Jeffrey was the top US official in Syria in Syria since 2018, serving as Washington’s Special Representative for Syria Engagement in the country.
Jeffrey is retiring from the role this month, to be replaced by Joel Rayburn. Jeffrey told Syria Direct on October 30 that no changes will happen in the US policy in Syria with regards to troop presence, sanctions policy, or US demand that Iran leave Syria, “be it with a Biden administration or Trump.”
A couple of days before official announcement of his retirement, Jeffrey called officials in Rojava, including Ibrahim Biro, a member of the foreign relations office of the opposition Kurdish National Council (ENKS), to tell him that there will not be any changes in US policy in Syria until at least January 20 of next year, when Trump leaves office. Biro later told Rudaw English that he himself does not expect any major changes in US policy in Syria “in the near future.”
Biro called on Kurds to take a self-sustained approach to their future, as Biden’s past vocal support of the Kurds may not prevail once he assumes power. “We as Kurds have to rely on ourselves and make deals with Syrians,” Biro said.
One concern for Kurds in Rojava is the seemingly constant threat of another attack by neighboring Turkey. Ankara has conducted three major operations in northern Syria since 2016, claiming that the Kurdish authorities pose a threat to Turkish national security.
Trump received international condemnation for announcing in October 2019 that he would be withdrawing American troops from Rojava, effectively greenlighting a cross-border operation long planned by Ankara. Scores of civilians were killed and hundreds of thousands more displaced by the invasion, dubbed by Turkey as Operation Peace Spring.
Asked if he believes Biden will prevent Turkey from attacking Rojava, Biro said that “we cannot say that the US will sacrifice its interests with Turkey for the sake of Kurds, including the SDF and PYD,” referring to YPG’s political arm, the Democratic Union Party (PYD).
'The best this region can hope for'
Biden criticised Trump’s conduct in the lead-up to the operation, accusing him of selling a loyal ally out.
Trump “sold out the Syrian Democratic Forces — the courageous Kurds and Arabs who fought with us to smash ISIS’s caliphate — and he betrayed a key local ally in the fight against terrorism,” Biden said on October 10, 2019, one day after Operation Peace Spring began.
Biden’s stance towards the Kurds in Syria has not always been consistent. In August 2016, while he served as vice president, Biden visited Ankara to show solidarity with Erdogan, survivor of a coup attempt made one month earlier. There, he warned the SDF to withdraw from east of the Euphrates River, as demanded by Ankara – or else the Obama administration would cut all US support to the force.
Even so, SDF commander Abdi told Al-Monitor on Saturday that he is “optimistic” about the new president, saying that he expected to see overlap between Biden’s policies and those of Obama, US president until January 2017.
“When we started the fight against the Islamic State together with the United States and the Global Coalition, the same team was pretty much in place,” Abdi said.
Abdi called on Biden to at least double the number of American troops in Rojava to ensure the region’s security, and described current political relations as “insufficient.”
“I believe they will pursue a more realistic policy in Rojava,” Abdi said. As for our expectations, we must successfully conclude the fight against terror that we are conducting together.”
Trump has more than halved the US troops in Syria. Six hundred soldiers remain, who Trump redirected to protect oil fields in SDF-controlled areas.
It seems unlikely that Biden will reverse that cut in troop numbers. Asked by the Wall Street Journal in September 2019 if there should be residual US troops in Syria, Biden replied, "It depends on what needs are. Right now, to deal with a couple of hundred forces that are able to protect the Kurds and provide for security in the region makes a lot of sense."
Thomas McClure is a researcher at Rojava Information Center, a monitor on the ground in the northeast Syrian region. He too does not see major changes with Biden’s election, “but that is perhaps the best this region can hope for.”
“After a chaotic few years, Biden is expected to take a more stable approach to North and East Syria. While still having an eye on US draw-down in the Middle East, we won’t see another sudden overnight withdrawal from regions where the US has a presence,” McClure told Rudaw English.
McClure believes that Biden should secure seats for the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (NES) in diplomatic negotiations over the future of Syria, as “securing official representation for NES would be a significant and positive step towards securing the region’s future as an autonomous beacon of democracy in Syria.”
“In NES, Biden has an opportunity to put distance between his foreign policy and Trump’s, and prove that the US still has a valuable role to play as a guarantor of peace, freedom and democracy in the Middle East.”
Peter Galbraith is an American author and political analyst with decades of involvement in Kurdish politics in the Middle East. Speaking to Rudaw in August, he expressed more optimism on what US-Rojava relations could look like under Biden’s tenure.
"The next administration will be more committed to the people of Rojava… future president Biden knows the Kurds, likes the Kurds, appreciates their importance. I do see there will be a stronger US interest in preserving the many elements of what was accomplished in northeast Syria."
Hope and despondency from the streets
On the streets of Qamishli, Rojava’s biggest city, Biden’s reputation as pro-Kurdish appears to precede him.
“I believe that the new US President Joe Biden will support Kurds more than all of his predecessors,” Hussein Osman, a Kurdish farmer in Qamishli told Rudaw English. “I hope he puts pressure on the necessary parties so that the rights of Kurds are secured, and the status of Rojava is politically recognized,” Osman said.
Avin Hajo, a Kurdish women’s rights activist in Qamishli, believes Biden will “seek resolution of the Kurdish issue, and wants constitutional recognition for them.”
Some of the city’s residents, like Kurdish poet Mayram Ali, feel too let down by the international powers who have intermittently offered to protect them to hold out any hope that a change in administration will bring positive change.
“I never trust US policy, and I cannot say that it will prevent Turkish attacks. They only look out for their own interests,” Ali told Rudaw English.
With reporting from Viviyan Fatah in Qamishli
