SYRIA YPJ YPG KURDISH SDF BACKGROUNDERS IDLIB 

SYRIAN KURDS AS AU.S. ALLY
 Cooperation & Complication
CONTENTS 
Acronyms |
 IV 
Preface | Patrick Clawson 
V Making Rojava More like the KRG | David Pollock
 1 U.S. Ties with Turkey and the Syrian Kurds | Soner Cagaptay 12 
The Syrian Opposition and the PYD | Andrew J. Tabler 20
 Arabs in the PYD-Controlled Area | Fabrice Balanche 29 
Iraqi Kurds and Syrian Kurds | Bilal Wahab 39 
Russia, Syrian Kurds, and the Assad Regime | Anna Borshchevskaya 46 
U.S. Policy and the PYD | Patrick Clawson 52
  

Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) - Institute for the Study of War

Nov 22, 2016 - and PYD are affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a ... approximately 25,000 fighters across northern Syria.2 ... The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) is the U.S.'s most effective partner fighting .... 2017, http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/uploads/Documents/pubs/. PolicyFocus150_Clawson.pdf.

[PDF]

The Kurdish issue: the Kurds between the historical dream and the ...

https://projekter.aau.dk/projekter/files/261766604/Thesis_2017.pdf

Jun 24, 2017 - ethnic minority, formulating around 2 million people or 8% of Syrian .... considers, ―The Syrian Kurds, the much-praised ally of the US and the ...... ―The reason for Washington'smove to support the Kurdish ..... http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/uploads/Documents/pubs/ ... 2.pdf (Accessed 23/06/17).

[PDF]

The Road to ar-Raqqah: Background on the Syrian Democratic ... - CSS

www.css.ethz.ch/en/services/digital-library/articles/article.html/bad943db.../pdf

Nov 30, 2016 - www.washingtoninstitute.org/uploads/Documents/pubs/ PolicyFocus150_Clawson.pdf. 3 Roy Gutman, “New allies in northern Syria don't seem ...

Competing Interests in Shingal District: Examining the PKK-linked ...

www.academia.edu/.../Competing_Interests_in_Shingal_District_Examining_the_PKK-li...

Middle East Research Institute 1186 Dream City Erbil, Kurdistan Region of Iraq T: +964 .... 2 The PKK-linked Armed Structures in Syria and Shingal District .

Northern Syrian militants action effects on the political order of the ...

https://interpolitics.guilan.ac.ir/article_2863_en.html

Translate this page

Turkey's actions shaped a new kind of relationship between militants and ... Article 2, Volume 7, Issue 1 - Serial Number 23, Spring 2018, Page 49-86 XML ... Syrian Kurds as a U.S. Ally: Cooperation and Complications, Policy Focus 150, the ... .washingtoninstitute.org/uploads/Documents/pubs/PolicyFocus150_Clawson.pdf.

Syria: Current Developments Favour Assad - AIIA - Australian Institute ...

https://www.internationalaffairs.org.au › Australian Outlook

Feb 20, 2019 - The Kurdish YPG are one of the many factions that will have to be accommodated in ... general locations: the Kurdish-dominated north and northeast, Idlib province ... The presence of US forces ensured the SDF's protection.

Idlib Province and the Future of Instability in Syria | Center for Strategic ...

https://www.csis.org/analysis/idlib-province-and-future-instability-syria

Sep 21, 2018 - While some claim that an end to the conflict in Idlib marks the final stage of the ..... Soldiers from Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) and Women's .... (SDF) led by the People's Protection Units (YPG), the Kurdish armed ...

Syria, March 2019 Monthly Forecast : Security Council Report

https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/monthly-forecast/2019-03/syria-5.php

Feb 28, 2019 - Divergences over the fate of Idlib became clear at a 14 February ... Democratic Forces (SDF), which includes the Kurdish YPG militia, and the ...

The Battle For Syria's Oil Region | OilPrice.com

https://oilprice.com › Geopolitics › Middle East

Dec 24, 2018 - Only Idlib and the territories east of the Euphrates river remain out of the ... The Kurdish YPG is the backbone of the SDF and is linked to the 

An Analysis of Jaish al-Thuwar (The Army of Revolutionaries) – A ...

https://hasanmustafas.wordpress.com/2015/11/16/an-analysis-of-jaish-al-thuwar-the-army-of-revolutionaries-a-component-of-the-syrian-democratic-forces/ 

Nov 16, 2015 - The inclusion of YPG-aligned brigades such as the Kurdish Front and the .... When the SDF announced its formation in Idlib and Aleppo ...

KURDISTAN

The revolution in North and East Syria after the fall of Assad

By Chris Slee

Published 29 January, 2025

The revolution in North and Eastern Syria began in 2012 among Kurds living there, but spread to involve other nationalities in the area.

The Kurds were oppressed under the Bashar al-Assad regime. Many were denied Syrian citizenship. Land was taken from Kurds and given to Arab settlers. The Kurdish language was discriminated against. Kurdish political organisations were repressed.

The outbreak of the revolution in other parts of Syria in 2011 weakened the regime and allowed Kurdish political organisations to operate more freely.

In July 2012 there was an uprising in Kurdish areas, led by the Democratic Union Party (PYD). There was little resistance from Assad regime troops, most of whom surrendered without a fight.

In Kobani, for example, a mass of people assembled outside the army base as a delegation informed soldiers that if they gave up their weapons, their safety would be guaranteed. The soldiers agreed. Some returned to their homes in other parts of Syria, while others stayed in Kobani.1

Rojava revolution

The Kurdish area of North and East Syria is known as Rojava (meaning western Kurdistan). The uprising came to be referred to as the “Rojava revolution”.

The PYD initiated the creation of democratic structures. Base level organisations were called communes. In the countryside, a commune might be a village. In the cities, a commune might comprise a few hundred households on the same street. Each commune elected representatives to a higher level body.2

The PYD promotes equality for men and women. For example, communes and other organisations were required to have male and female co-chairs. The PYD also promotes the inclusion of all ethnic and religious groups in the democratic structures.

The PYD led in the creation of armed forces to defend the revolution. They created the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and Women’s Protection Units (YPJ). The latter is an all-women armed force.

In the rest of Syria, the popular uprising turned into a civil war. Peaceful protests were violently repressed. So, many opponents of the regime took up arms.

The problem was that weapons and money for the rebels came from Turkey and the Gulf States, who tended to support the most reactionary rebel groups, including Arab chauvinists hostile to Kurdish rights and Islamist groups hostile to religious minorities and the secular PYD. Turkey was particularly opposed to Kurdish self-determination and supported groups that were hostile to Rojava.

Daesh

The PYD distrusted both the Assad regime and many of the rebel groups. It tried to stay out of the fighting between the regime and the rebels. However, Rojava came under attack from some Turkish-backed groups. In 2014 Rojava was attacked by Daesh, or the so-called Islamic State.

Daesh captured large areas of Iraq and Syria, including Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, after the Iraqi army collapsed there. Daesh also attempted to capture Kobane, but was driven back by Kurdish fighters and some Arab Free Syrian Army fighters.

Worried about the rise of Daesh, the United States formed an alliance with the YPG and YPJ to fight against Daesh. This was paradoxical, because the US was also supporting Turkey in its war against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Turkey and northern Iraq.

The PYD follows the ideas of imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan. The Turkish government views the PYD and PKK as essentially the same. Yet the US was supporting Turkey against the PKK while supporting the YPG and YPJ against Daesh.

Over the next few years Daesh was driven out of North and East Syria. The alliance between the YPG and YPJ and some Arab groups led to the formation of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). As the war against Daesh continued, more Arabs joined the SDF. With each successful push against Daesh, more areas populated by Arabs came under SDF control.

To highlight the multi-ethnic character of North and East Syria, the Kurdish name Rojava was replaced by Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES). On the other hand, Turkey named its Syrian proxies the Syrian National Army.

In 2018, Turkey invaded Afrin, a predominantly Kurdish area in northern Syria. The SDF resisted the Turkish invasion of Afrin for more than two months, but the light weapons of the SDF were no match for the aircraft and tanks of the Turkish armed forces.

Although helping the SDF fight Daesh, the US did not help the SDF fight the Turkish invasion of Afrin. This showed the limitations of the alliance: the US has no interest in defending the revolution.

In 2019, Turkey invaded a strip of land along the border in northern Syria. Since then, Turkey and its SNA proxy have continued their attacks on AANES-controlled areas.

Syria’s future

Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) became the dominant force in Idlib province, in north-western Syria. HTS was allied with Turkey, but not totally under Turkey’s control; it was relatively independent. In November 2024, HTS launched an offensive against the Assad regime, leading to its rapid collapse.

At the same time, Turkey and the SNA stepped up their attacks on AANES. They captured some areas west of the Euphrates river, including the towns of Tal Rifaat and Manbij. These forces are currently trying to cross the Euphrates, but the SDF is resisting this offensive. There is a battle for control of the Tishrin dam.

Meanwhile, AANES is putting forward its ideas for the future of Syria as a whole. They call for a National Dialogue Congress, which would involve “political and social organizations, as well as ethnic, religious and cultural groups” that could develop a “common social contract”.3

They also call for the liberation of the areas under Turkish occupation and for the new government in Damascus to join them in this struggle.

HTS is unlikely to agree to AANES’s proposals, but there is hope that they will gain an audience among the Syrian people beyond the north and east.

Based on a talk given to an online discussion about Syria organised by the moderators of the Marxmail discussion list.

• 1

  Revolution in Rojava, by Michael Knapp, Anja Flach, and Ercan Ayboga, Pluto Press, 2016, page 54

• 2

  Revolution in Rojava, p.87

• 3

  “Peoples’ Assembly of North-East Syria presents six principles for Syrian Constitution”, ANF English https://anfenglishmobile.com/rojava-syria/peoples-assembly-of-north-east-syria-presents-six-principles-for-syrian-constitution-77461

 

BEYOND THE BOSPORUS: PKK renames itself Apoist Movement Management

A photo of Apo (PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan) was placed on the wall behind the two PKK members (also members of the KCK management board) who referred to the PKK as Apoist Movement Management during a press conference held in the Qandil mountains. / ANFFacebook

TwitterLinkedInTelegramFlipboardFeedly

By Akin Nazli in Belgrade May 17, 2026

The one-year anniversary of the latest self-dissolution declaration by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) arrived earlier this month. And at a press conference held in northern Iraq’s Qandil mountains, a new name was put into circulation. The PKK that does-not-but-does exist referred to itself as “Apocu Hareket Yonetimi” (Apoist Movement Management).

Throughout last year, countless headlines declared that the PKK had indeed disbanded and laid down arms. The ‘analysis’ and commentaries on this supposed fact kept on coming.

Nowadays of course, journalists are rarely heard talking about keeping the public informed as to what is really going on, instead they are fixated on attracting clicks. The fresh name, nevertheless, is recorded as a new development in the centuries-long Kurdish question.

Back to factory settings

The political movement of Turkey’s Kurds is loosely referred to in general as “the PKK”. It has established itself as the dominant political organisation of the Kurds in Turkey and Syria by order of the gun since the 1980s.

Between 1973 and 1978, the initial antecedents of the movement that would later become the PKK amounted to a loose ideological circle in Turkey, referred to by themselves as the Revolutionaries of Kurdistan (Kurdistan Devrimcileri).

Others, meanwhile, called them the Apoists (Apocular) after Abdullah Ocalan, also known as Apo, who would go on to become the indisputable leader of the PKK. 

Now half a century later, the political organisation is calling itself the Apoist Movement Management, which provides an interesting nuance.

In the last five decades or so, the PKK has also called itself the Kurdish Freedom Movement (Kurt Ozgurluk Hareketi) and the Kurdistan Freedom Movement (Kurdistan Ozgurluk Hareketi). These names are also still in use today.

2002, first self-dissolution announcement

Since it was launched in 1978, the PKK has utilised a sophisticated “umbrella” strategy, frequently changing names to adapt to shifting legal and geopolitical dynamics.

Between 1978 and 2002, the “umbrella” organisation called itself the PKK and declared that it was waging an armed insurgency in Turkey for an independent state.

In 2002, the PKK declared its first self-dissolution, three years after Ocalan was in 1999 handed over to Turkey’s intelligence service, MIT, by the CIA in Kenya.

During 2002 and 2003, the name of the umbrella organisation became the KADEK (Kurdish Freedom and Democracy Congress) as part of an attempt to pivot toward legal diplomacy.

During 2003 and 2005, KONGRA-GEL (Kurdistan People’s Congress) was employed as the name to describe the umbrella organisation.

Since 2005, the KCK (Kurdistan Communities Union) has been in use. There are dozens of combinations of three letters that operate under the KCK, a name that is also still in use.

And, with a May 5 press release, the organisation returned to its factory settings by calling itself the Apoist Movement Management. They also underlined their demand that Ocalan be given official status.

The names keep coming

In addition to the many names used for the “umbrella” organisation, the PKK uses many other names for dozens of sub-groups that operate under the umbrella.

The PKK’s most significant achievement across its history has been the expansion of the movement into northern Syria. PYD (Democratic Union Party), YPG/YPJ (People’s/Women’s Protection Units), SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces), TEV-DEM (Movement for a Democratic Society) are just a few of the names still in use in Syria.

Lately, it was said that the SDF is over and done with now since it made a recent deal with the Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) government in Damascus. It is hard to keep track of the fate of all the names used by the PKK.

The mainstream media loves to rabbit on about how the PKK’s military presence has faded in recent years. That is only because the organisation built an army of a few dozen thousand fighters in Syria. It is erroneous to think they are covered by a separate organisation.

The fighters have been adapted to roles in Syria’s newly-established army in battalions. Turkey and the HTS had pushed for the inclusion of fighters as individuals, but the Kurds managed to keep their military force together.

Other names in use are PJAK (Free Life Party of Kurdistan in Iran) and PCDK (Kurdistan Democratic Solution Party in Iraq).

HPG (People’s Defense Forces) is a name used by the armed groups in the Qandil Mountains on the Iraq-Iran border. YPS (Civil Protection Units) and YDG-H (Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement) are other examples of names used to describe the armed groups that carried out attacks in Turkey.

And there are still other names used by the PKK not mentioned in this article. In addition to armed groups and umbrella organisations, there are also legal entities active in Turkey and many countries across Europe.

Cycles upon cycles

Since the 1980s, governments in Turkey and the political movement of the country’s Kurds have entered into cycles where, in coordination, concepts of war and peace are addressed.

Currently, a ceasefire prevails. It was initiated in October 2024. Donald Trump, who does not like US proxies jostling among each other, was on the road to the White House. A widescope operation against the Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu-led main opposition party (Republican People’s Party, or CHP) was picking up pace.

In July, IntelliNews wrote: “Make no mistake. What we have here is an Erdogan, PKK coalition.” Why so? You can read about it here.

The coalition process that holds sway in Turkey is conducted by the powers that be. Erdogan pulls the strings. When the time comes to sell a sharp U-turn in rhetoric, the masses are always, step by step, subject to thorough preparation.

As regards the selling of the ceasefire, we saw the PKK step forward to announce that the PKK – which strictly speaking was actually abolished in 2002 – was disbanding and soon after stage a ceremony for invited media during which they set some old school Kalashnikov rifles on fire. No other decommissioning of weapons seems to have taken place since.

The Kurdish affair has a complex structure and long history. Coupled with it is always heavy manipulation from multiple sides (foreign players in addition to different power groups within the various parties involved in the conflict) as well as the courage of ignorance that dominates media coverage. In fact, relying on media reports for the sake of understanding developments is not advisable.

In March, this publication reported that Turkey’s government has built a house for Ocalan on Imrali prison island, where he remains an inmate.

IMPERIALIST TURKIYE OUT OF SYRIA!

Syrian Kurdish YPG should stop delaying Syria integration, Turkey says

"The YPG/SDF must stop its policy of playing for time," Fidan told a joint press conference with his Syrian counterpart Asaad al-Shibani in Ankara.

KURDS, DRUZE, ALAWITES & CHRISTIANS WANT A PLURALIST DECENTRALIZED STATE

Members of Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) stand guard as Women’s Protection Unit (YPJ) and Kurdish internal security forces conduct a security operation in al-Roj camp, Syria, April 6, 2025

.(photo credit: REUTERS/Orhan Qereman)ByREUTERSAUGUST 13, 2025 16:18

The Kurdish YPG militia, which spearheads the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), should stop "playing for time" and abide by its integration agreement with the Syrian government, Turkey's Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Wednesday.

NATO-member Turkey has been one of Syria's main foreign allies after the ousting of Bashar al-Assad last year, while it considers both the SDF and YPG as terrorist organizations.

The SDF, which controls much of northeast Syria, signed an agreement with Damascus in March to integrate into the Syrian state apparatus.

"The YPG/SDF must stop its policy of playing for time," Fidan told a joint press conference with his Syrian counterpart Asaad al-Shibani in Ankara.

"Just because we approach (the process) with good intentions does not mean we don't see your little ruses," Fidan said.

KURDISH FIGHTERS from the People’s Protection Units (YPG) run across a street in Raqqa, Syria in July. (credit: GORAN TOMASEVIC/REUTERS)Fidan visited Damascus last week, following clashes between the SDF and Syrian government forces in Manbij and Aleppo, and after weeks of tensions between Israel and Syria over fighting between Druze and Bedouin forces around Sweida last month.

Turkey views the YPG as an extension of the PKK"A new era has begun in the region and there's a new process in Turkey. They should benefit from those positive developments," Fidan said, referring to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group's decision to disarm and disband.

Turkey views the YPG as an extension of the PKK but the YPG has said the disarmament call of jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan did not apply to it, contradicting Ankara's view.

"We witness some developments in Syria that we find hard to tolerate," Fidan said. "We see that members (of the YPG) who came from Turkey, Iraq and Iran have not left Syria."

Shibani criticized the SDF for holding a conference which called for a review of the constitutional declaration issued earlier this year by Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa and said it sought to exploit the events in Sweida. He also called the conference a violation of the agreement to integrate the SDF into state institutions.

The SDF has been in conflict with Turkey-backed Syrian armed groups in northern Syria for years. Ankara has carried out several incursions against the YPG in the past and controls swathes of territory in northern Syria.