Political Geography of the Kurdish Issue and Its Relationship with the Syrian National Revolution

epa03042905 Syrian Kurd protesters carry placards agasnit Syrian president Bashar Assad during a protest outside the Arab League offices in Beirut, Lebanon, 25 December 2011. Syrian opposition Kurds appealed for the Arab League to immediately send observers to the besieged city of Homs and other Syrian cities. EPA/NABIL MOUNZER

The Syrian revolution that erupted in March 2011 revealed a major crisis of confidence among different social elements in Syria: between Christians and Muslims; between Sunni Muslims and other sects, primarily the Alawite and Druze communities, and between Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen. However, while we purposefully omitted to mention Chechens and Ismailis, since their crisis of confidence was not fully revealed by the revolution, we counted the Syriac Orthodox, Assyrian and Armenian communities as part of the Christian community, in general. These distinctions fall outside the scope of this paper. They are mentioned here only to set the wider national context in which the Arab-Kurdish crisis of confidence evolves.

The views represented in this paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Arab Reform Initiative, its staff, or its board.