Can the Syrian regime prevent Turkey from ethnically cleansing Rojava?

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have agreed to promptly hand control of the cities of Kobane and Manbij to the Syrian regime in the hopes that this can halt Turkey’s invasion of northeast Syria. By doing so, the group is surrendering to the regime to avert a Turkish-backed ethnic cleansing of northeast Syria’s Kurdish population.  

“To counter and prevent [this] Turkish attack, an agreement with the Syrian government, which is responsible for protecting the borders of the country and preserving Syrian sovereignty, has been reached for the Syrian army to enter and be deployed along the Syrian-Turkish border,” read a statement from the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (NES) on Sunday.  

When Turkey invaded the northwestern Kurdish enclave of Afrin in early 2018, the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) similarly stressed that Damascus must uphold its duty to protect its borders. The regime did send Popular Front loyalist militias, but they did nothing to deter or prevent Turkey from taking over the entire enclave. 

Turkey also ignored Syria’s threats to shoot down its F-16s at the time since it was confident it could do as it pleased in Afrin  due to the Russian withdrawal of military police and refusal to close the airspace, effectively greenlighting the invasion.

Furthermore, Moscow was not willing to halt the invasion unless the YPG handed over all of Afrin to Damascus, which it was unwilling to do.

US President Donald Trump similarly, although far more treacherously, green-lighted the current Turkish campaign by withdrawing US troops from the border and scrapping the whole “safe zone” plan that he had gotten the SDF to sign onto. This resulted in the SDF destroying defensive fortifications it had near the border and withdrawing heavy weapons under the mistaken belief that the US would prevent Turkey from launching a war of aggression against them.

Given its extremely precarious position, the SDF may well cede complete control over Manbij and Kobane to prevent an ethnic cleansing of Kurds in these areas. After Afrin fell, Kurds were horrified by Turkey’s blatant effort to destroy Afrin’s Kurdish-majority demographics by resettling displaced Arabs in Kurdish homes and generally terrorizing the civilian population using its Syrian militiamen proxies.

A similar fate will likely befall the Kurds of northeast Syria if Turkey is able to invade their regions, many of which are situated directly on the Turkish border.

Before the Afrin invasion, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan repeatedly said he would give Afrin to what he called its “rightful owners.” Turkey’s proxies moved to reengineer Afrin’s demographics shortly after the invasion.

Today, Erdogan is planning to resettle millions of Syrian refugees in Turkey in northeast Syria, the vast majority of whom are not from the region. It is that clear he intends to make Kurds in Rojava a minority in their homeland, if not remove them altogether.

Consequently, the Kurds have calculated that, as brutal as it is, that they will fare much better if they surrender key areas to the Syrian regime than if they fight on, inevitably lose, since they’re hopelessly outgunned and outnumbered, and be subjected to heinous abuses by Turkey and its proxies, several of whom are openly jihadist.

In August 1988, when the Iraqi Kurds were being subjected to the barbarous Anfal campaign, Masoud Barzani contemplated surrendering if that would have helped protect Kurdish civilians after Iraq began gassing them.

That never happened. Despite being hopelessly outgunned by an Iraqi military over five times larger and more technologically advanced than the one that defeated the Peshmerga in 1975, the Kurds stayed on and fought instead of once again withdrawing to Iran.

Shoresh Resoul, a Kurdish researcher, told American journalist Jonathan C. Randall at the time that “all Kurds knew some areas had been gassed, but if we gave up we feared worse awaited our people. The Peshmerga mission changed from attacking Iraqis to trying to protect our people.” 

In the case of the SDF today, the Kurds are surrendering territories in the hopes it will save more lives than the alternative and allow them to remain on their homeland, even if it’s once again under regime rule.

As SDF commander Mazlum Abdi stated, “If we have to choose between compromises and the genocide of our people, we will surely choose life for our people.”

It’s been clear for years now that Turkey would much rather look south and see the Syrian regime forces rather than the YPG.

Decisive Russian and Iranian support to a regime redeployment in Rojava will likely see Turkey promptly wrap up its current campaign.

Then, at the behest of Moscow and Tehran, Ankara will likely agree to reactivating the 1998 Adana Agreement with Damascus.

That agreement saw Syria drop its support for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) to stop Turkey from attacking. It also gave Turkey permission to pursue any PKK fighters fleeing from Turkey into northern Syria, as far as 5 kilometres into Syrian territory, as long as it did not capture or hold any Syrian territory in the process.

Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested the idea to Erdogan in January as an alternative to the American-proposed safe zone. Erdogan said at the time that he liked it. Iran has also advocated for the regime reestablishing control over northeast Syria and the Adana Agreement being reintroduced.

The regime has said that it will accept the reintroduction of that agreement provided that Turkey first withdraws all its forces from Syria. Russia and Iran may convince it to compromise.

For Turkey, the reactivation this agreement could fulfil its objective of having the YPG removed from its immediate border.

However, Ankara will likely have to forego its plans to send millions of refugees into northeast Syria unless it wants to clash with the regime. Damascus has already declared that it will not tolerate Erdogan’s plans in northeast Syria, calling it ethnic cleansing, and insisting that refugees should be resettled in the areas of the country from where they originally came.

Whatever happens, the events of last week and events of the coming week will shape the future of northeast Syria for many more years to come.