Syria's Kurds declare de-facto federal region in north
BEIRUT (AP) -- Syria's Kurds on Thursday declared a de-facto federal region in Kurdish-controlled areas of northern Syria, drawing sharp condemnation from both the Damascus government and its opponents who decried the unilateral move as unconstitutional and setting a dangerous precedent.
The declaration further complicates the situation on the ground in Syria even as peace talks press ahead in Geneva. The main Syrian Kurdish party has been excluded from those talks - perhaps an indication of why the Kurds chose this particular moment for their move.
In Syria's civil war, Kurdish fighters have emerged as the most effective fighting force against the Islamic State group and are backed militarily by the United States. More recently, Russia has backed them politically.
But despite Russia's insistence that they should be part of the talks that started this week in Geneva, they have not been invited because Turkey considers the group to be a terrorist organization.
"Everybody rhetorically appreciates the Kurds, they all acknowledge the Kurdish fight against ISIS and that they are great warriors, but this is not being reflected in the diplomatic spectrum," said Mutlu Civiroglu, a Washington-based Kurdish affairs analyst, using an alternative acronym for the Islamic State group.
Thursday's announcement triggered fears that a Kurdish federal unit would lead to a partition of the war-shattered country - a formula that may make sense in principle after five years of devastating fighting but one that would be messy and unpalatable to most parties.
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The government, dominated by President Bashar Assad's Alawite sect of Shiite Islam, controls Damascus, the Alawite heartland along the Mediterranean coast, and other cities and connecting corridors in between. The Kurds run their own affairs in the northeast.
I guess that Syria's killing of Kurds isn't a serious situation. But it's a serious situation to Bashar when they want to have their own country.
Of course the Kurds are going to attempt to have their own country, and I expect to see it happen in Iraq as well.