Still no assurances of U.S. protection after Syria withdrawal: Kurdish leader

The Kurdish forces of the Peoples’ Protection Units (YPG) and its affiliated groups and political wings have been left under heightened threat of a Turkish attack since U.S. President Donald Trump announced the imminent withdrawal of U.S. troops on December 19.
Since then, the withdrawal has been delayed due to dissenting U.S. politicians and the efforts of Syrian Kurdish politicians like Ahmed, a co-chair of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Council that administers northeast Syria. Ahmed arrived on a visit to Washington D.C. this week to lobby for protection for the Kurdish groups after the U.S. withdrawal.
“We have been holding important meetings. We are discussing the post-withdrawal situation or restructuring the withdrawal, so we avoid a rushed pull out. IS is still at large, even after the ground battles conclude it has sleeper cells and is very much a serious threat,” Ahmed told the National, referring to the Islamic State fighters the Kurdish and U.S. forces have been battling in the region.
“We are asking the US to adjust its presence and transition to phase two, where we have to defeat IS as an insurgency movement, and turn the page on the socioeconomic level,” Ahmed said.
While Ahmed believes the U.S. withdrawal will happen, she said the nature of the withdrawal is still uncertain, and U.S. counterterrorism units could remain in Syria.
The idea of a safe zone, brought to the agenda by Trump in a tweet on January 13, is one acceptable solution for Ahmed, though she said her side would not accept one administered by Turkey.
An acceptable safe zone for Ahmed would be administered by international forces, which recent reports suggest could include troops from European or Arab countries.
However, there are still no definite plans in place to protect the Syrian Kurds after a U.S. withdrawal, Ahmed said.
“There is nothing definite yet, but what they are working on is guaranteeing the withdrawal is not rushed, and that there won’t be an invasion of our area. In theory, there are discussions, but we don’t have a mechanism or decisions yet,” she said.
The Syrian Kurdish groups are thus in contact with Russia and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government as an alternative in the event the United States pulls out without a plan in place, though an agreement would bear the condition of continued decentralised administration.
“For the regime to protect the border, it would have to follow a political process where it would accept a decentralised administration – then we can talk about joint protection for the border,” Ahmed said.
Turkey views the Syrian Kurdish groups as a threat due to their links to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has fought in Turkey for Kurdish self-rule since 1984.
Ahmed, however, denied that her administration aims for a separate Kurdish state and said the PKK has not been directly involved in the northern Syrian administrations, despite the presence of Turkish Kurds in their militias.
“The bulk of our troops is Syrian; we won’t deny that when IS was attacking Kobani, many volunteers from Turkey joined and stayed, and some were martyred,” Ahmed said, referring to the 2014 siege of the Kurdish majority town in northern Syria by the Islamic State.
“They are Turkish Kurds but not PKK. They came to fight IS and when this fight is over, we are willing to discuss the matter,” she said.
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