President Assad was referring to the Syrian wing of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). This is a remarkable statement coming from Syria given this country's bloody history of suppressing political dissent. But Assad is also sending a message to Turkey: Some sort of an amnesty for the PKK will have to be put in place for the process of democratization to move forward. Only 10 years ago, Turkey and Syria came to the brink of war over the PKK issue. The Baqa'a Valley was used by the PKK as a training camp. In the 1990s, Syria used the PKK as a bargaining chip against Turkey over the water issue. For years, the Syrians refused to turn over PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan or other PKK fighters. This policy damaged Turkey's fight against terrorism in the 1990s.
But it was also costly for Syria on two fronts. On the one hand, it strained relations with Turkey, and Syria lost both economically and politically. If the current rapprochement between the two countries had taken place in the 1990s, the region would have been in a very different place today. On the other, by sheltering and supporting the PKK, a Kurdish nationalist-separatist movement, the Syrian regime encouraged its own Kurds to join the ranks of the PKK.
Today, despite excellent relations between Turkey and Syria, some PKK fighters still come from Syria. The Syrian PKK is known to be more radical than the Turkish PKK. The sources also say that it is opposed to the new democratic initiative launched by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Some even claim that some of the recent PKK actions on the ground have been carried out by the Syrian group. It is not clear if the Syrian PKK will follow suit if and when the PKK disarms as part of the democratization process.
President Assad seems to understand how vital the Kurdish issue is for Turkey. But he also acknowledges that the new Kurdish initiative by the Turkish government will have a direct impact on Syria's own Kurdish population. The Syrian Kurds are the third largest Kurdish group in the region after Turkey and Iraq. They live in poor conditions, and many of them do not have identity cards. The Syrian Kurds have not started an armed struggle, and this is good news for Syria. But President Assad will need to launch his own “democratization initiative” to address the same issue in his country.
President Assad is clear on another issue: Grievance-driven and identity-based conflicts such as the Kurdish issue cannot be solved by military means alone. The words Assad uses to explain this particular point are strikingly similar to the statements of some Turkish officials: “We embrace anyone who lays down arms because our goal is not to take revenge but to end terrorism. We cannot end terrorism by hunting terrorists. Because every terrorist killed is replaced by another one.”
While this is a statement of fact, it is also a call for Turkey: Turkey will have to do more than Kurdish broadcasting to bring down the PKK fighters from the mountains and persuade them to lay down their arms. Assad goes as far as granting amnesty to those who lay down their arms. It is clear that this is a message to Turkey as well. And Assad is right. The democratization steps by the Erdoğan government will have to include courageous and constructive measures to end PKK violence. The Kurdish issue will not be solved by democratic steps alone without, at the same time, finding a solution to the PKK.
