Syrian Kurdish groups on the back foot as power balance shifts

Syrian Kurdish groups on the back foot as power balance shifts
Giant independence-era Syrian flags hang on the facade of a building in Syria’s northern city of Manbij on December 21, 2024. Islamist-led rebels took Damascus in a lightning offensive on December 8, ousting president Bashar Assad and ending five decades of Baath rule in Syria. (AFP)
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Updated 22 December 2024
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Syrian Kurdish groups on the back foot as power balance shifts

Syrian Kurdish groups on the back foot as power balance shifts
  • Syrian Kurds established autonomy early in civil war, Turkiye views their main group as national security threat
  • Syrian Kurdish leader asks Trump to prevent Turkish incursion

QAMISHLI: With hostile Turkish-backed groups mobilizing against them in Syria’s north, and Damascus ruled by a group friendly to Ankara, Syria’s main Kurdish factions are on the back foot as they seek to preserve political gains carved out during 13 years of war.
Part of a stateless ethnic group straddling Iraq, Iran, Turkiye, Armenia and Syria, Kurds have so far been among the few winners of the Syrian conflict, controlling nearly a quarter of the country and leading a powerful armed group that is a key US ally in countering Islamic State.
But the power balance has tilted against them since the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) swept into Damascus this month, toppling President Bashar Assad, two analysts and a senior Western diplomat told Reuters.
The seismic change in Syria is expected to yield deeper Turkish sway just as a change of US administration is raising questions over how long Washington will keep backing the country’s Kurdish-led forces.
For Turkiye, the Kurdish factions represent a national security threat. Ankara views them as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has been waging an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984 and is deemed a terrorist group by Turkiye, the United States and other powers.
The Syrian Kurdish groups “are in deep, deep trouble,” said Aron Lund, a fellow at Century International, a US-based think tank.
“The balance has shifted fundamentally in Syria to the advantage of Turkiye-backed or Turkiye-aligned factions, and Turkiye seems determined to exploit this to the fullest.”
The shift has been reflected in renewed fighting for control of the north, where Turkiye-backed armed groups known as the Syrian National Army (SNA) have made military advances against the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
Fanar Al-Kait, a senior official in the Kurdish-led regional administration, told Reuters that the ouster of Assad, whose Arab nationalist Baath Party oppressed Kurds for decades, presented a chance to stitch the fragmented country back together.
He said the administration is ready for dialogue with Turkiye, but the conflict in the north showed Ankara had “very bad intentions.”
“This will certainly push the region toward ... a new conflict,” he added.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday he expected foreign states would withdraw support for Kurdish fighters following Assad’s toppling, as Ankara seeks to isolate the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the Kurdish militia that spearheaded the SDF alliance.
Responding to questions from Reuters, a Turkish official said the root cause of the conflict is “not Turkiye’s view toward the region; it is that the PKK/YPG is a terrorist organization.”
“The PKK/YPG elements must lay down their arms and leave Syria,” the official said.
SDF commander Mazloum Abdi, in a Reuters interview on Thursday, acknowledged the presence of PKK fighters in Syria for the first time, saying they had helped battle Islamic State and would return home in the event a total ceasefire was agreed with Turkiye. He denied any organizational ties with the PKK.
Feminism and Islamism
Meanwhile, in Damascus, the new leadership is showing warmth toward Ankara and indicating it wants to bring all Syria back under central authority — a potential challenge to the decentralization Kurds favor.
While Turkiye provides direct backing to the SNA, it along with other states deems HTS a terrorist group because of its Al-Qaeda past.
Despite this, Ankara is believed to have significant sway over the group. A senior Western diplomat said: “The Turks can clearly influence them more than anyone else.”
HTS leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa told a Turkish newspaper that Assad’s ouster was “not only the victory of the Syrian people, but also the Turkish people.”
The Turkish official said HTS was not and never had been under Ankara’s control, calling it a structure “we were communicating with due to circumstances” and adding many Western states were also doing so.
Syrian Kurdish groups led by the Democratic Union Party (PYD) and the affiliated YPG militia took control of much of the north after the uprising against Assad began in 2011. They established their own administration, while insisting their aim was autonomy, not independence.
Their politics, emphasising socialism and feminism, differ starkly from HTS’ Islamism.
Their area grew as US-led forces partnered with the SDF in the campaign against Islamic State, capturing Arab-majority areas.
The Turkiye-backed SNA groups stepped up their campaign against the SDF as Assad was being toppled, seizing the city of Manbij on Dec. 9
Washington brokered a ceasefire, but the SDF has said Turkiye and its allies have not abided by it, and a Turkish defense ministry official said there was no such deal.
US support for the SDF has been a point of tension with its NATO ally, Turkiye. Washington views the SDF as a key partner in countering Islamic State, which Secretary of State Antony Blinken has warned will try to use this period to re-establish capabilities in Syria. The SDF is still guarding tens of thousands of detainees linked to the militant group.
Turkish Defense Minister Yasar Guler said last weekend that Turkiye saw no sign of a Daesh resurgence in Syria. On Friday, Turkiye’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, told his German counterpart during talks in Ankara that alternatives needed to be found for the management of camps and prisons where the detainees are being held.
Separately, US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf said on Friday that Washington was working with Ankara and the SDF to find “a managed transition in terms of SDF’s role in that part of the country.”
President Joe Biden’s administration has said that US troops will stay on in Syria, but President-elect Donald Trump could remove them when he takes office on Jan. 20.
Letter to Trump
During his first administration, Trump attempted to pull out of Syria but faced pressure at home and from US allies.
In a Dec. 17 letter to Trump, reviewed by Reuters, top Syrian Kurdish official Ilham Ahmed said Turkiye was preparing to invade the northeast before he takes office.
Turkiye’s plan “threatens to undo years of progress in securing stability and fighting terrorism,” she wrote. “We believe you have the power to prevent this catastrophe.”
Asked for comment, Trump-Vance transition spokesman Brian Hughes said: “We continue to monitor the situation in Syria. President Trump is committed to diminishing threats to peace and stability in the Middle East and to protecting Americans here at home.”
Trump said on Dec. 16 that Turkiye will “hold the key” to what happens in Syria but has not announced his plans for US forces stationed there.
“The Kurds are in an unenviable position,” said Joshua Landis, a Syria expert at the University of Oklahoma. “Once Damascus consolidates its power, it will move on the region. The US can’t remain there forever.”
HTS leader Sharaa told British broadcaster the BBC that Kurds were “part of our people” and “there should be no division of Syria,” adding arms should be entirely in the state’s hands.
Sharaa acknowledged one of Turkiye’s main concerns — the presence of non-Syrian Kurdish fighters in Syria — and said: “We do not accept that Syrian lands threaten and destabilize Turkiye or other places.”
He pledged to work through dialogue and negotiations to find “a peaceful formula to solve the problem,” saying he believed initial contacts had been established “between the Kurds in northeastern Syria or the SDF organization.”
Kait, the Kurdish official, said his administration wanted “a democratic Syria, a decentralized Syria, a Syria that represents all Syrians of all sects, religions and ethnicities,” describing these as red lines. The SDF would be “a nucleus of the coming Syrian army,” he added.
SDF commander Abdi, in his Reuters interview, confirmed that contact had been established with HTS to avoid clashes between their forces but said Ankara would try to drive a wedge between Damascus and the Kurdish-led administration.
Still, he said there was strong support from international parties, including the US-led coalition, for the SDF joining “the new political phase” in Damascus, calling it “a great opportunity.”
“We are preparing, after a total ceasefire between us and between Turkiye and the affiliated factions, to join this phase,” he said.


Iraq, US sign preliminary deal on projects including 24,000 MW of power plants

Updated 4 sec ago
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Iraq, US sign preliminary deal on projects including 24,000 MW of power plants

Iraq, US sign preliminary deal on projects including 24,000 MW of power plants
DUBAI: Iraq and the United States signed on Wednesday a memorandum of understanding for projects in the Gulf country, including 24,000 megawatts of power plants, the Iraqi prime minister’s media office said.
Another MOU has been inked between Iraq’s Ministry of Electricity and US company UGT Renewables to establish an integrated solar energy project with a capacity of 3,000 MW, the media office said in a statement.
US President Donald Trump’s administration last month rescinded a sanctions waiver that since 2018 has allowed Iraq to pay Iran for electricity as Washington presses on with its “maximum pressure” campaign against Tehran.
Iraq, OPEC’s second-largest producer after Saudi Arabia, uses Iranian power imports to generate electricity and has been under pressure from the US to reduce its reliance on power and gas imports from Iran.

Sudan FM expresses disapproval at exclusion from UK conference for resolving country’s civil war

Sudan FM expresses disapproval at exclusion from UK conference for resolving country’s civil war
Updated 8 min ago
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Sudan FM expresses disapproval at exclusion from UK conference for resolving country’s civil war

Sudan FM expresses disapproval at exclusion from UK conference for resolving country’s civil war
  • Rapid Support Forces, who are locked in a deadly struggle with the Sudanese Armed Forces, have also been excluded from the conference
  • UK, along with conference co-hosts Germany and France, is bringing together foreign ministers from nearly 20 countries and organizations

LONDON: Sudan’s Foreign Minister Ali Youssef has expressed his disapproval, via a letter to UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy, at his exclusion from a UK-hosted conference aimed at resolving the African country’s prolonged civil war.

The Rapid Support Forces, who are locked in a deadly struggle with the Sudanese Armed Forces, have also been excluded from the conference.

Instead, the UK, along with conference co-hosts Germany and France, is bringing together foreign ministers from nearly 20 countries and organizations in an attempt to establish a group that can drive the warring factions in Sudan closer towards peace.

The conference at Lancaster House in London on April 15 comes on the second anniversary of the start of a civil war that has led to the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis, but has been persistently left at the bottom of the global list of diplomatic priorities. Half of Sudan’s population are judged to be desperately short of food, with 11 million people internally displaced.

The initiative holds risks for Lammy, since it may require him to place pressure on some of the UK’s Middle Eastern allies to make good on their promises to no longer arm the warring parties.

A harsh spotlight is also very likely to fall in London on the impact of USAID cuts on the provision of humanitarian aid in Sudan as well as the withdrawal of funding by the US from academic groups that have been monitoring war crimes and the build-up of famine.

NGOs such as Human Rights Watch are also urging the ministerial conference to emphasize the importance of civilian protection, independent of a ceasefire.

At an event previewing the conference, Kate Ferguson, the co-director of the NGO Protection Approaches, said: “The conference comes at a critical moment for civilians in Sudan as areas of control under various armed forces rapidly evolve and civilians face an increasing spectrum of varied attack.”

She added: “A new vehicle is needed to take forward civilian protection. This is a moment here to create something new that is desperately needed — whether that is a coalition of conscience or a contact group.”

Ferguson added that “citizens were facing an unimaginable triple threat of armed conflict, identity-based atrocity crimes and humanitarian catastrophe.”


Lebanese PM says there is no threat of a return to war if no timetable is set for ‘limiting weapons’

Lebanese PM says there is no threat of a return to war if no timetable is set for ‘limiting weapons’
Updated 23 min 28 sec ago
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Lebanese PM says there is no threat of a return to war if no timetable is set for ‘limiting weapons’

Lebanese PM says there is no threat of a return to war if no timetable is set for ‘limiting weapons’
  • Comment follows reports from Western security agencies that Hezbollah is transporting weapons from Iran by sea, and a recent visit from US envoy Morgan Ortagus
  • The prime minister’s office says ‘Lebanon is committed to all security measures to protect the Port of Beirut’ and the city’s airport

BEIRUT: Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said on Wednesday he has not received “any threat, neither from the Deputy US Special Envoy to the Middle East Morgan Ortagus nor from anyone else, regarding the possibility of a return to war if the government does not set a timetable for limiting weapons.”

A source in the prime minister’s office told Arab News: “Lebanon is committed to all security measures to protect the Port of Beirut, as well as the airport, and we have not received any information indicating complaints in this regard.” The government has “a clear security plan to protect its vital facilities,” the source added.

On Tuesday, news channel Al-Hadath said reports by Western security agencies suggested “Hezbollah has begun using the sea to transport weapons from Iran, following air restrictions and the collapse of Syrian regime control. The Port of Beirut is considered the focal point for this activity, with Hezbollah operating freely through collaborators in customs and oversight mechanisms.”

Salam said: “The constitution, which is based on the Taif Agreement, stipulates the extension of state authority over all its territory through its own forces. All ministers are committed to this matter.

“A ministerial statement also affirmed the exclusivity of weapons in the hands of the state, and all ministers are committed to that. The matter of war and peace lies solely in the hands of the state.”

Salam was speaking after a meeting on Wednesday with Maronite Patriarch Bechara Boutros Al-Rahi at the latter’s office in Bkerke, during which he briefed the religious leader on the outcomes of his meeting with Ortagus last week.

In his comments following the meeting, the prime minister also emphasized the “urgent need for Israel to withdraw from the five occupied points” in Lebanon “as they hold no military, security or strategic value.

“We are currently in an era dominated by technology, satellites and surveillance, and military aircraft. Unfortunately, there are also networks of spies on the ground, which we have reiterated, particularly to Ortagus. This is a matter we are actively pursuing.”

Also on Wednesday, Lebanon’s public works and transportation minister, Fayez Rassamni, toured the Port of Beirut and met representatives of the security agencies operating there. In response to the reports of weapons passing through the port, he said: “Operations at the port are proceeding with the same intensity as those at the airport, and security here is firmly under control. We will not allow anyone to cast doubt, and if there is any information please provide us with evidence.”

Omar Itani, chairperson of the board and general manager of the port, said: “The port management does not have the authority to inspect the nature or content of the goods arriving at the port. Their role is limited to facilitating and overseeing logistics.

“Inspections and audits are conducted in coordination with the customs administration, the Lebanese army, and other security agencies present within the port, as part of a unified regulatory system aimed at preventing any potential violations. In recent years, these procedures have been significantly strengthened, particularly by the Lebanese army, to ensure that no infractions or smuggling occur.

“An agreement has been reached to enhance oversight and update equipment, including the introduction of modern scanning devices similar to those used in international ports. This initiative aims not only to bolster security but also to facilitate export activities, especially towards Gulf and European countries, thereby benefiting farmers and production sectors while increasing state revenues.”

Iranian airlines continue to be denied landing permits at Rafic Hariri International Airport in Beirut following Israeli allegations that Tehran was using them to deliver funds and weapons to Hezbollah.

Ortagus, the US envoy, visited Lebanon last weekend and held meetings with a wide range of politicians and economists in what was described as a constructive atmosphere. She also toured the National Museum in Beirut.

After leaving the capital, however, she raised her tone and in a series of statements since the start of the week has stressed that Hezbollah must be fully disarmed. She said the group “is like a cancer and Lebanon must eradicate it if it is to recover.”

During an interview with Sky News, she accused Iran of “dragging the Middle East into a perilous new phase of instability.” She said that “the Lebanese army, with its current capabilities, is able to disarm Hezbollah” and “disarming Hezbollah is part of President Donald Trump’s maximum-pressure policy on Iran.”

Ortagus added: “The only way for Lebanon to emerge from its crisis is to reject any role for Iran and its allies, and the US has optimistic expectations regarding Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri’s role in the next phase.

“We expect reforms in Lebanon but the Trump administration’s patience has limits. We want the Lebanese to feel safe when depositing their money in banks. I informed Lebanese officials not to count on the World Bank meeting without the approval of reforms by parliament. Lebanese officials must show the World Bank that they are serious, not just talking.”

Meanwhile, a new Israeli violation of Lebanese sovereignty was reported when Israeli warplanes carried out an airstrike deep inside the country. The target was a residential building between the towns of Aadous and Hosh Tal Safiya in the Baalbek region of the eastern Bekaa. The strike was preceded by a warning raid that gave the Syrian residents time to evacuate the building.


Queen Rania of Jordan addresses Gaza’s humanitarian crisis with Italy’s Giorgia Meloni

Queen Rania of Jordan addresses Gaza’s humanitarian crisis with Italy’s Giorgia Meloni
Updated 09 April 2025
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Queen Rania of Jordan addresses Gaza’s humanitarian crisis with Italy’s Giorgia Meloni

Queen Rania of Jordan addresses Gaza’s humanitarian crisis with Italy’s Giorgia Meloni
  • Queen Rania emphasized the severe shortage of food, medical supplies and shelter in Gaza
  • Queen Rania and Giorgia Meloni reaffirmed the strong ties between Rome and Amman

LONDON: Queen Rania of Jordan addressed the humanitarian crisis in Gaza during a meeting with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Wednesday, during her brief visit to the country.

Meloni hosted Queen Rania at Villa Doria Pamphili in Rome, where they discussed the humanitarian crisis caused by Israeli military actions in Gaza, the official Petra agency reported.

Queen Rania emphasized the severe shortage of food, medical supplies and shelter following the Israeli suspension of aid relief deliveries to Gaza. She highlighted the increasing orphan crisis in Gaza, where more than 39,000 Palestinian children have lost one or both parents since October 2023.

Queen Rania and Meloni reaffirmed the strong ties between Rome and Amman. They highlighted the significance of educational projects and family protection initiatives in Jordan, which the Italian Development Cooperation supports.


US energy secretary to visit the UAE on first international trip

US energy secretary to visit the UAE on first international trip
Updated 09 April 2025
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US energy secretary to visit the UAE on first international trip

US energy secretary to visit the UAE on first international trip
  • Chris Wright’s visit to Abu Dhabi follows agreement on several deals between the US, UAE in March
  • Wright to meet ministers, senior investment leaders to discuss accelerating bilateral trade

LONDON: The US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright is visiting the UAE this week on his first international trip.

Wright’s visit to Abu Dhabi follows agreement on several deals between the US and the UAE in March, totaling $1.4 trillion in investments across energy, infrastructure, manufacturing, and artificial intelligence.

His discussions with senior UAE ministers and officials will focus on enhancing collaboration to drive sustainable economic growth and energy innovation in both countries, the Emirates News Agency reported.

Among those meeting Wright are Suhail Mohamed Al-Mazrouei, the minister of energy and infrastructure; Sultan Ahmed Al-Jaber, the minister of industry and advanced technology; Yousef Al-Otaiba, the UAE’s ambassador to the US; and Martina Strong, US ambassador to the UAE.

Wright will also meet senior leaders in the energy, AI, and investment sectors in the UAE to discuss technological collaboration, accelerating bilateral trade, and strengthening joint investment initiatives, WAM added.

Al-Jaber said that Wright’s visit “reflects the strength and depth of the UAE-US strategic relationship and our shared commitment to energy security, economic growth, and technological advancement.”

He added: “As we look to the future, we see vast opportunities to deepen collaboration across energy, infrastructure, AI, and industry — anchored in the pro-growth, pro-investment, and pro-people approach that both our nations champion.”

Wright said that the US and the UAE will continue discussions to strengthen their strategic relationship and support recent UAE investments in the US while promoting global energy security.

Wright and Al-Jaber are to co-host a Future Energy Leaders Majlis during the visit, and have invited Emirati and American youth leaders, some Ivy League alumni, and representatives from the US Department of Energy and the UAE’s Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure.

The UAE is expanding its energy presence in the US through strategic investments in hydrogen, renewables, LNG (liquefied natural gas), and chemicals, which include partnerships with ExxonMobil and NextDecade, WAM added.