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QAMISLI, Syria – The Kurdish-led government in northeastern Syria is seeking the help of the United Arab Emirates to broker a deal with the Syrian regime. confidence in america Al-Monitor has been informed that the Arabs are outreaching to Damascus.
Mazlum Kobane, commander-in-chief of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), is America’s top ally in Syria fight against islamic state (IS), recently traveled to the UAE, four well-informed sources and officials in the region told Al-Monitor on condition of strict anonymity. Kobane met with Emirati officials to seek Abu Dhabi’s help in advancing the case between Syrian Kurds and the Assad regime, two sources said. A regional source said Kobane met on March 29 with the UAE national security adviser Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who was appointed Abu Dhabi chief on March 29. deputy ruler.
The UAE has denied any such meetings took place.
“The claims made in your email are false and unsubstantiated,” an Emirati official said in an emailed response to Al-Monitor’s comment on mediation efforts between the UAE’s alleged Self-Defense Forces and the regime.
Regional officials insisted that Kobani had indeed traveled to the UAE between late March and early April. No specific date was provided. “That’s 100 percent correct,” one of the officials said. He was accompanied by Bafel Talabani, the leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the second largest party in the Iraqi Kurdistan region, the Kurdistan regional government, said two officials briefing Al-Monitor. The second largest political party in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Talabani’s office did not respond to Al-Monitor’s request for comment.
The de facto foreign minister of the Kurdish-led autonomous government in northeastern Syria, Badran Ciya Kurd, confirmed that the UAE expressed interest in helping Syrian Kurds strike a deal with the Assad regime. “They say they are ready to help, but so far we have no plan (roadmap) for that,” Kurds said in an interview with Al-Monitor in Qamishli on April 28. “We want them to play a role in the negotiations with Damascus,” Kurd added, declining to comment on whether Kobani had been to the UAE recently.
Ankara strike
Kobani allegedly headed to UAE capital Targeted by Turkish drone On 7 April, he traveled in a convoy from the intelligence headquarters of the PUK Counter Terrorism Group (CTG) in Sulaymaniyah. Officials who briefed Al-Monitor said the drone attack happened after Kobani returned from the UAE.
The convoy headed to Sulaymaniyah International Airport. Kobani will return to northeastern Syria on a plane operated by the U.S.-led coalition fighting ISIS. CTG chief Wahab Halabji was in the convoy along with three U.S. military personnel, as well as a senior Syrian Kurdish official, Ilham Ahmed. It is widely believed that the Turkish drone deliberately missed its target and that Kobani managed to fly home. An official briefing Al-Monitor speculated that this was done to convey Ankara’s anger at PUK leaders for shuttling Kobani to the UAE.
On April 5, Turkey announced it had sealed off its airspace, banning aircraft from taking off and landing at Sulaymaniyah Airport, ostensibly after hearing that Kobani had been sent to Abu Dhabi, the sources said. Turkey’s foreign ministry said the measure stemmed from an alleged “intensified activity of the PKK terrorist group in Sulaymaniyah”. [and] Terrorist groups infiltrated the airport. ” PKK is PKK, an illegal militant organization that has waged an armed movement against the Kurdish autonomy of the Turkish state since 1984. Ankara insists that both the SDF and Kobane (also surnamed “Abdi”) are PKK “terrorists” because of his previous role in the PKK.
Turkey said it would reassess the airport’s decision on July 3 in the light of measures taken by the PUK to curb PKK activity in Sulaymaniyah. Türkiye is the main gateway to Europe from the Kurdistan region.
The PKK was instrumental in the early days of the US-led coalition’s fight against ISIS, capturing thousands of Yazidis from jihadists in Iraq’s Sinjar region and training fighters for the SDF. However, it was listed as a terrorist entity by the State Department in 1997, so Ankara was angered by Washington’s effective cooperation with the group.
Washington has insisted that the SDF and the PKK are distinct, and has said the roughly 900 U.S. special forces stationed in northeastern Syria as part of the anti-Islamic State campaign will not withdraw. Confidence in the US, however, is waning.
The first major shock came in 2019, when the Trump administration sanctioned Turkey’s invasion of large swaths of Kurdish-held territory, including the main towns of Tel Abyad and Rais al Ain, also known as Serekaniyah . The U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan is another wake-up call, said Fawza al-Yusuf, a leading official in northeastern Syria. “Our relationship with the US has been declining since 2019. Serekaniye and Afghanistan offer lessons,” she told Al-Monitor in an interview with Hasakah on April 27.
Yusuf acknowledged that while the U.S. presence gives Syrian Kurds leverage in relations with Damascus, it also has a downside. The Syrian regime has insisted that the Kurds cut ties with Washington and tell the Americans to leave as a precondition for any deal.
“So the presence of the US military gives the regime an excuse not to engage with us,” Yusuf explained.
She added that trust in Russia, the regime’s main ally with Iran, is waning as the Kremlin’s relationship with Ankara deepens. The Kurds need to take matters into their own hands and not be reduced to “objects” in regional power games. Diversifying their partners is part of that strategy.
bridge building
The UAE has taken the lead in building bridges between the Assad regime and Arab states in recent years after reopening its embassy in Damascus in December 2018, part of a regional influence contest that aims, among other things, to weaken the Turkish and Iranian control of Syria. Engagement with the Syrian Kurds is part of this calculation.
“The anti-Iran and anti-Islamist agenda has been the driving force behind the normalization of relations between the UAE and Assad,” said Dareen Khalifa, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group focusing on Syria. “The anti-Islam agenda is at the heart of their foreign policy and national security agenda,” she told Al-Monitor. The UAE is outreaching on the grounds that “Assad is not going anywhere and if we want to safeguard our interests in Syria we will have to deal with him one way or another,” Khalifa added .
According to Charles Lister, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and director of the Syria Program, the UAE is “trying to be ‘friends’ with everyone, acting as a mediator wherever possible and getting in before anyone else The door to trouble spots to secure a competitive advantage.”
“Ultimately, the UAE’s forward-looking role in Assad’s normalization was initially motivated by a desire to counter Turkish influence, but is now primarily about securing a competitive advantage – being a Sunni Arab actor in charge of the Assad regime without any No doubt it wants to be the first to win large-scale economic contracts if Western sanctions are lifted or fail to act as a deterrent,” List told Al-Monitor.
While the UAE may justify its rapprochement with Damascus on the grounds that it would help counter Iranian influence in Syria, the two countries are the largest trading partners and Abu Dhabi hosted senior Iranian officials in March, Including Ali Shamkani, Iran’s national security adviser.
It is unclear whether the UAE’s efforts to secure approval for Syria’s return to the Arab League during the May 19 summit in Riyadh will be successful. But the UAE is unlikely to abandon its efforts to delegitimize Bashar al-Assad. In addition, it is believed to be involved in secret diplomacy between Ankara and Damascus.The UAE’s intervention apparently angered Tehran, which reportedly relied on Russia and Turkey to abandon the UAE in talks with Syrian officials on April 4. held in moscow. The Iranians took part instead.
In 2018, around the same time that the UAE reopened its embassy in Damascus, Syrian Kurds began seeking engagement with the Assad regime. So far, Russia’s efforts have proven futile. The regime has rejected all Kurdish demands for linguistic and political rights. According to sources familiar with the talks, the regime is offering up to two hours of Kurdish-language instruction per week.
A new sense of urgency appears to have emerged as Arab governments, including heavyweight Saudi Arabia, weigh normalizing ties with the Assad regime. To make matters worse, Turkey, Assad’s arch-enemy, is also courting Damascus, hoping to restore a security alliance against the Kurds.
On April 18, the Kurdish-led autonomous government issued a nine-point manifesto reiterating its intention to reach an agreement with the regime. This includes proposals to host the millions of Syrian refugees currently living in neighboring Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. “We need to reach out to the Syrian people, wherever they are, to dispel negative sentiment towards our government. This includes members of the Syrian opposition. Only when we unite can we build a new democratic Syria,” said a member of the Kurdish movement. The senior figure told Al-Monitor on condition that he spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The Kurds, the de facto foreign minister, said the Syrian Kurds would not compromise on two matters. One is the administrative model they established. “The regime must recognize autonomy,” he said. The second is the status quo of the Self-Defense Forces. Although the Kurds are willing to belong to the commander-in-chief of the Syrian army, they insist on keeping their troops within their jurisdiction.
Union Seed
The UAE is part of the 85-member global anti-IS coalition. Sources briefing Al-Monitor said formal contacts between the Kurdish-led autonomous government and the UAE began in 2018, when Emirati officials traveled to northeastern Syria to interrogate detained Emirati nationals who had joined the Islamic State. Those ties were brokered in part by former PUK intelligence chief Lahur Talabani, who was led by his cousin, PUK, in a bloodless coup in 2020. Buffel was ousted from the stage. Talabani lobbied the UAE to invest in Syria’s battered oil infrastructure, mostly in the Kurdish-controlled northeast, where most of the country’s oil is located. At the top of the list is an oil refinery. Sources familiar with the outreach activities said Talabani traveled with Kobani to Abu Dhabi on several occasions to promote his cause.
But the source said the Emiratis feared upsetting Assad. They would be more concerned about violating US sanctions on Syria.
The move coincided with escalating tensions between Turkey and the UAE over their support for opposing sides in the conflict in Libya. These have subsided, and it is unclear whether the Emiratis are willing to support the Syrian Kurds at the expense of their newly repaired relations with Ankara. The UAE’s vehement refutation of the Kobani trip suggests they are not.
However, Syrian Kurdish officials remain optimistic about the relationship. Youssef praised the UAE’s “constructive and positive attitude” in an interview with Al-Monitor. “We have a good cooperation with them in terms of intelligence sharing, fighting drug trafficking,” she said.
She noted that the UAE has the lowest number of Islamic State members among Arab countries. “There were only 15 of them and the Emiratis were very helpful in the fight against DAESH,” she said, using the Arabic acronym for jihadist.
Youssef added that the UAE’s own seven independent monarchies united under one flag bear some resemblance to the model of decentralization that the Kurds are seeking for Syria. “We have some common traits,” she said.
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