“We don’t have a political future that we offer for [Kurds],” Jeffrey told members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
“The political future we offer for them is the political future we offer for everybody in Syria” – a stake in “a democratic, peaceful government” based in Damascus, he added.
The civilian administration which controls Rojava – the Kurdish region of northern Syria – has said it wants to preserve its local councils, forces, and languages and is not seeking independence from Damascus.
The Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), the political arm of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) which governs the autonomous region, has published a set of conditions the regime must meet for it to reintegrate.
Among them is a call for a “democratic republic” in which representatives of the local administration sit in the Syrian parliament and participate in the Damascus government.
The SDC also calls for official recognition of its flag to fly side-by-side with the Syrian banner and to allow the Kurds to maintain their own diplomatic relations with the outside world.
No formal negotiations have taken place between the SDC and the regime of Bashar al-Assad, which has repeatedly threatened to retake the northern provinces by force.
As the territories controlled by the Kurdish administration are home to many of Syria’s oilfields and best agricultural land, it is in the fuel-starved regime’s interests to reintegrate these provinces.
With the outbreak of civil war in Syria in 2011, the nation’s Kurds immediately merged their enclaves in the northern provinces and established a semi-autonomous region, laying the basis for a potential Kurdish state.
Nine years into the conflict, and with the territorial defeat of Islamic State (ISIS) at the hands of the SDF, the future of ‘Rojava’ remains unclear.
Plans to establish a ‘safe zone’ along the Syria-Turkey border could dash Kurdish hopes of holding on to the territory.
Jeffrey said such a safe zone should be under the joint control of US and Turkish forces and must exclude the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG).
“The idea would be that the YPG forces would withdraw and leave local forces and Turkey and the United States to figure out what we would do in the safe zone,” Jeffery said, without specifying which local forces.
Jeffrey made similar comments on March 25 regarding a YPG withdrawal from the Turkish border, as Ankara “feels very nervous about them.”
The YPG makes up the backbone of the SDF, which led the ground war against ISIS across northern Syria. However, Ankara views the YPG as an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), an armed group fighting for greater Kurdish political and cultural rights in Turkey. Both groups deny the link.
Jeffery said they are studying Turkey’s proposal for a 30-kilometer deep buffer zone.
“We’re going back and forth with them on how deep the safe zone will be,” he said.
“We are concerned about the relationship between Turkey and our SDF partners in the northeast, which is why we’re having this discussion or negotiation with the Turks on a safe zone,” he added.
Turkey has repeatedly threatened to invade Kurdish-held northeast Syria, expanding its 2018 ‘Olive Branch’ operation, which saw Turkish forces and their Syrian proxies seize Afrin from the YPG.
The presence of US-led coalition forces in northeast Syria helped to shield the fledgling autonomous administration from attack. Now that US forces are looking for an exit, the potential for a Turkish attack is growing.
Hundreds of US lawmakers signed a letter to Donald Trump on Monday calling on the president to exercise “clear and sustained American action” in Syria to eliminate jihadist threats and to protect Washington’s allies.
Trump has been reluctant to maintain the US troop presence in northern Syria, where roughly 2,000 personnel were stationed in support of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the fight against ISIS.
In December 2018 he announced the full and imminent withdrawal of all US personnel, disregarding the advice of his own national security team and allies. He backpedaled in February, allowing for a fraction of troops to remain.
Trump’s call for a full withdrawal caused outcry and prompted the resignation of US Defense Secretary Jim Mathis and the special envoy to the anti-ISIS mission Brett McGurk.
“Since February things have changed and we will keep some of our forces, but if we look at the declaration of withdrawal from the beginning, we must say that we have not lost our credibility and that we are in a good position with our allies in SDF,” Jeffery said.
