Misrepresenting northeast Syria’s Kurdish demographics is dangerous

Recent statements by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan regarding the Kurds of northeast Syria are worrying as they both appear to misrepresent the region’s very significant Kurdish demographics. 

On November 15, Assad claimed northeast Syria is “a majority Arab area”, adding that 70 percent of its residents are Arabs.

“Things are different from northern Iraq and southeast of Turkey,” he said. “There is no Kurdish majority in this area.” 

On October 25, Erdogan misrepresented the landscape of northeast Syria in order to justify his planned settlement of Syrian refugees in Turkey there. 

“What is important is to prepare a controlled life in this enormous area, and the most suitable people for it are Arabs,” Erdogan argued in an interview with TRT.

“These areas are not suitable for the lifestyle of Kurds... because these areas are virtually desert.”  

Both statements are disingenuous. The Syrian Kurdish heartland is in northeast Syria and Kurds make up a substantial part of the population there.

Furthermore, northeast Syria is not “virtually desert” as Erdogan claimed. Hasaka, for example, is invariably described as Syria’s “breadbasket”. 

Both leaders’ misrepresentations of northeast Syria’s Kurdish demographics are cause for concern. This is because both men seek to, at the very least, curtail Kurdish self-determination there. 

Assad wants to dismantle the unrecognised federal system declared in northeast Syria back in 2016, gradually disarm the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), and reinstate his regime’s authority there. 

“There are armed groups that we cannot expect they would hand over weapons immediately but the final goal is to return to the previous situation, which is the complete control of the state,” he declared.

This was inevitably going to be the case. In 2016, he declared that the federal system is “temporary” and that the Syrian constitution does not permit federalism. His stance made it unequivocally clear that Damascus would never recognize any federal region in the way Iraq recognizes the autonomy and legality of the Kurdistan Region. 

The SDF called on the regime to return to northeast Syria to help halt the Turkish invasion launched on October 9, shortly after US troops pulled back from the border. The regime has since deployed forces in key areas along the border and intermittently clashed with Turkish proxies. 

Russia has deployed military police in the northeast and organized several joint patrols with the Turkish Army on the Syrian side of the border, from which the SDF were compelled to withdraw. 

Kurds in northeast Syria are hoping they can still reach a political settlement with the Assad regime that will allow them to retain some rights. 

Kurdish rights were long negated in Syria under both Assad and his father Hafez al-Assad. 

In the mid-1970s, Hafez Arabized several hitherto Kurdish areas by resettling armed Arab families on expropriated Kurdish land. This was part of an effort to Arabize Kurdish-majority areas in the strategically-important region, not wholly dissimilar to what Saddam Hussein did in Kirkuk. 

The Syrian constitution generally neglects the country’s non-Arab minorities by stressing that the country is an Arab Republic. 

The 1973 constitution declared Syria an “Arab region” and “part of the Arab homeland” and its people “part of the Arab nation”. 

The revised constitution issued in February 2012 did nothing to fundamentally revise this. Although it did make reference to Syria’s ethnic diversity it did not grant Kurds equal rights and representation. 

Kurds want their rights enshrined under the constitution. They are generally pessimistic, however, about any progress being made in this direction. 

A draft constitution put forward by Russia three years ago suggested extending rights and recognition to the Kurds, their culture, and language. It even suggested renaming Syria the ‘Syrian Republic’ instead of the ‘Syrian Arab Republic’ in recognition of the non-Arab components of its population.  

Assad is against adopting a new constitution, instead favouring a few amendments to the 2012 one. 

It is not unclear whether Assad will grant the Kurds any substantial rights or recognition. His misrepresentation of northeast Syria’s Kurdish demographics suggests he may revert to his earlier policy of trampling on Kurdish rights and suppressing their aspirations with brute force after he fully reasserts centralized control over these regions. 

Erdogan’s misrepresentation of the region’s landscape was also worrying since the Turkish president is on record advocating for the mass settlement of millions of predominantly Arab refugees in northeast Syria’s Kurdish-majority regions. 

It is unlikely he will achieve this stated goal however. Turkey successfully conquered a large swath of northeast Syria stretching from Gire Spi (Tal Abyad) to Sari Kani, more than 100 kilometres wide and several kilometres deep, since launching its latest operation. 

Gire Spi is primarily Arab and sits between the two predominantly Kurdish regions of Kobane and Jazira. 

Although Erdogan could feasibly settle some refugees in that area, this will not dramatically alter the Kurdish demographics – not nearly as severely as his 2018 operation did in the northwest Syrian Kurdish enclave of Afrin. 

Well over 100,000 Kurds were displaced from their homes by Operation Olive Branch. Turkey’s Syrian militia proxies then promptly settled displaced Syrian Arabs from Eastern Ghouta in their place to cement the demographic change. 

The Syrian regime opposes any large-scale resettlement of refugees in northeast Syria. 

The fate of northeast Syria’s Kurds is not yet clear. History suggests they have little reason to feel optimistic.