None of the movements that surfaced during the Syrian civil war share a longer history with the Assad regime than the PKK, whose ties to Damascus were formed as early as 1979 and remain positively active until PKK founder Abdullah Öcalan left the country two decades later under heavy pressure from the Turkish government. Over the years, the Ba’ath regime did not go to great lengths to conceal its support for the organization. And although the relationship between Syria and the PKK began to change after 1999, the greatest rupture did not take place until the 2003 invasion of Iraq, when Turkey moved to shelter Syria from immense international pressures. Subsequently, from 2005 onward, the two countries enjoyed a period of cooperation whose likes the region had not witnessed for a long time. This, in turn, meant that Turkey was able to persuade Damascus to grant certain rights to the Kurdish community in Syria. This process, however, came to an abrupt end when the Assad regime started to engage in massacres against the Syrian people.

The PKK leadership’s ideological proximity with the Ba’ath regime helped them rekindle their ties with Damascus against the backdrop of the uprising. One would think that the Kurds, arguably the primary victims of the Assad regime, would lead the charge – which, a large number of Kurds indeed did while the PKK/PYD, who never enjoyed widespread support inside the country, sided with the Ba’ath regime. First, they attacked various traditional Kurdish movements and particularly Masoud Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party, or KDP. Ironically enough, the first group of Kurdish IDPs seeking refuge in Turkey were running away from PYD militants as opposed to the Assad regime.

Over the past years, the PYD’s cooperation with Damascus occasionally meant joining forces with none other than the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). With ISIS and PYD militants targeting the Syrian opposition, the Kurdish community, who suffered the worst atrocities, came to be viewed as traitors and collaborators by other opposition groups. Meanwhile, the Assad regime struck a deal with the PYD leadership to give them control over large parts of the country and consequently turn the militants into a major player. As such, the PYD, which compensated for its lack of popular appeal with Assad’s weapons, ended up endorsing the regime’s massacres whilst fighting the Syrian opposition and refusing to turn against the Ba’athists. In the wake of the Kurdish reconciliation process in Turkey and the rapprochement between Ankara and the KRG, the PYD leadership sought to carve out an autonomous region on Syrian soil.

Over the course of the Syrian civil war, the PKK staunchly opposed Turkey’s support for the Syrian opposition and did not hesitate to invoke the same arguments as Bashar Assad himself. Today, we witness how the same organization tries to turn over a new leaf and deny its previous position: Having competed with Assad himself over how much they opposed Turkey’s support for the opposition, the PKK now demands that Ankara help its militants fight ISIS. At the same time, though, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) voted against the government’s request for authorization for military engagement from Parliament. Having sided with Assad when Mosul, Homs and Aleppo fell, the PKK leadership suddenly became sensitive to the potential fall of Kobani and requested military action against ISIS. Today, what they have in their hands is nothing short of complete inconsistency. To make matters worse, the PKK organized the streets and claim several dozen lives. As such, the Kurdish political movement seems to have lost track of its enemies and friends amidst the Kobani debate with no end in sight anytime soon.

Taha Özhan

Daily Sabah