This article originally appeared in the Wall Street Journal.
BEIRUT—A U.S.-backed group in Syria is being pressed by the government of President Bashar al-Assad in talks to cede control of its territory to a regime Washington has long sought to unseat.
The Kurdish-led group, the Syrian Democratic Forces, which assisted the U.S. in the fight against Islamic State, controls a region stretching across much of northern and eastern Syria, including major cities such as Raqqa and some of the country’s largest oil-and-gas fields.
The U.S. has more than 2,000 troops fighting Islamic State in Syria, indirectly safeguarding the Kurdish administration. President Trump has indicated he wants to withdraw those troops, though there is no timetable for when that might happen.
With the U.S. commitment to Syria in question, Mr. Assad has given the Kurds two options: negotiate or face military action.
Backed by Russia and Iran, the Assad government is pushing to re-establish control over territory it lost during seven years of war. Besides the area under Kurdish administration, Turkish-backed opposition rebels control territory in the country’s northwest, while Islamic State still holds a shrinking pocket of land near the Euphrates River.
But the government’s efforts to retake the Kurdish-run region, which includes predominantly Arab towns, have been complicated by the presence of foreign powers with diverging interests. A deal with the Kurds would likely bolster Russia’s position as the main arbiter in Syria as the U.S. tentatively withdraws.
An agreement would put the vast majority of Syria back under the control of Mr. Assad, who the U.S. has said repeatedly it wants to oust. However, officials have indicated that other objectives in Syria had become higher priorities, such as the defeat of Islamic State and the removal of Iranian troops from the country.
In July, regime officials met for the first time with the Syrian Democratic Council, the mostly Kurdish political wing of the U.S.-backed force. They agreed to form a committee, with seven members from each side, to discuss a prospective agreement over administrative control of the area, said Sinam Mohamad, the council’s foreign representative in the U.S.
Last week, committee members went to Damascus to begin discussions but left without any progress, said Ilham Ahmad, a council leader.
“We are always looking for the political solution,” said Ms. Ahmad, who attended the first meeting in Damascus with regime officials. “We have never attacked the regime, so what excuse does the regime have to attack us?”
Riad Darar and Ilham Ahmed, co-chairs of the Syrian Democratic Council, in Tabqa, Syria, on July 16. PHOTO: RODI SAID/REUTERS
The Syrian government didn’t respond to repeated requests for comment. A spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition in Syria said it isn’t involved in the talks between its allies and the regime. A State Department official said the U.S. was aware of reports about meetings between members of the council and the Syrian regime in Damascus. The U.S. isn’t involved in the talks, the official said, and favors Syrian territorial integrity as well as a political transition process that considers the interests of all Syrians.
The Syrian regime and Kurdish groups have coexisted mostly peacefully since the beginning of the conflict in 2011, when the government largely withdrew from the northeast region. That pullout was a bid to appease the minority group—which had been denied many basic rights such as getting a passport—and prevent the Kurds from joining the burgeoning antigovernment uprising at the time.
Kurdish political and armed groups then used the war against Islamic State to expand their territorial control and establish their own government infrastructure and laws in the area. A deal to give up administrative control would be a major blow to their aspirations for autonomy.
Already, they have suffered several setbacks. In January, Turkey—which is trying to stamp down a Kurdish separatist movement in its own territory—captured a Kurdish enclave in Syria’s north in a bid to push the Kurdish militia back from near its border. And in June, Turkey got assurances from Washington that Kurdish forces would withdraw from another northern Syrian town that had been the cause of tension between the U.S. and Turkey.
That agreement could be complicated by the continuing spat between the two North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies. Ankara, which appears to be drawing closer to Moscow, has indicated it would welcome regime control near its border.
Russian leaders have previously blamed Western countries for fueling what they called separatist Kurdish sentiment for their own interests.
With its ultimatum—negotiate or face military action—Mr. Assad is deploying a tactic he has used often. In the past two years, regime forces have unleashed devastating military assaults on areas controlled by rebels or Islamic State militants, including the Damascus suburb of Eastern Ghouta and the southern provinces. The assaults ended only when the antigovernment combatants surrendered and withdrew.
The regime has been brutal against its opponents during the civil war as it tries to re-establish the same environment of fear and fealty that existed in Syria under more than four decades of Assad family rule.
That concern remained even when the Kurdish-led administration was ascendant. Some residents in the Kurdish region anticipated an eventual return by the Assad regime and took precautions, including registering their properties and vehicles only with the central Damascus government for fear that they could otherwise be confiscated.
But the council’s Ms. Mohamad remains hopeful regarding the outcome of talks with the regime, echoing what protesters first called for in the uprising—demands that the Assad regime responded to with a bloody crackdown.
“We are not asking for independence or to secede,” she said, referring to the Kurdish north. “We are asking for pluralism and democracy and decentralization. We think this is the solution.”
This article was originally published in the Wall Street Journal.
