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The Syrian conflict has contributed to the establishment of a de facto autonomous Kurdish region in Syria known as Rojava (Western Kurdistan). The Syrian army's withdrawal from Kurdish-populated areas in the north of the country during July 2012, followed by the rise of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its armed wing-the People's Protection Units (YPG)-have played key roles in empowering a Kurdish nationalist project in Syria. The project has further gathered legitimacy and support through the YPG's struggle against the Islamic State group (ISIS). Kurdish gains still face numerous challenges, however, and will not consolidate unless the PYD takes serious steps to broaden its Kurdish support base and normalize relations with its non-Kurdish neighbors, including Turkey. Should the PYD fail to do so, the result will likely be the intensification of ethnic conflict, both in Syria and across its borders.
The Kurds are an ethnic group of the Middle East bound together by common ties of race, culture, and language inhabiting parts of Armenia, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey.1 Numbering roughly thirty million, Kurds constitute the world's largest nation without a state. During the last century, Kurdish communities across the region strove to secure equal rights to citizenship and expression of their national culture and identity. Many have even advocated the establishment of an independent Kurdish state, or at a minimum the establishment of autonomous Kurdish regions within the framework of existing states.
Throughout the twentieth century, Kurdish nationalist movements made little progress in this respect, while suffering harsh repression at the hands of Middle Eastern governments. The last decade, however, has given rise to the establishment of a federal Kurdish entity in northern Iraq as well as signs of rapprochement between the Turkish government and its Kurdish population, raising prospects of greater Kurdish nationalist gains. Yet during the same time, there was minimal advancement of the Kurdish cause in Syria, where the Ba'ath regime not only denied some three hundred thousand Kurds Syrian citizenship and state services, but also heavily restrained any form of Kurdish political activity and mobilization.
Therefore, out of roughly two million Kurds in Syria, 154,000 held the status of ajaneb (foreigners or aliens), while another 160,000 were maktumin or unregistered (literally: concealed).2 The Ba'ath government deprived such...