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Syrian and Iraqi Kurds more divided over Syria

The Syria war is proving to be a divisive, rather than unifying, force among the Kurds of Iraq and Syria.
Residents and Kurdish fighters celebrate what they said was the liberation of their village from Islamist rebels near the city of Ras al-Ain November 5, 2013. The picture depicts a member of the Kurdish Youth Movement who died during the fighting. Redur Xelil, spokesman for the armed wing of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), said Kurdish militias had seized the city of Ras al-Ain and all its surrounding villages. Syrian Kurdish fighters have captured more territory from Islamist rebels in nor

WASHINGTON — The Syrian civil war and the weakening of central states in the Middle East has resulted in a new power struggle among Kurdish parties over control of the Kurdish areas in Syria, instead of unifying them. The outcome is two different Kurdish autonomous zones in Syria and Iraq that compete with each other, based on different economic models.

The New York Times earlier suggested that it could be possible that as a result of the Arab Spring, a Syrian Kurdistan could break off from Syria and merge with the Kurdistan Region of Iraq in a breakdown of the Western-imposed Sykes-Picot borders of 1916.

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