QAMISHLI, Syria — Bilingual signs, “Western Kurdistan” (Rojava in Kurdish) on car license plates, Kurdish security forces (Asayish), Kurdish courts, municipalities, flags, unions and schools teaching Kurdish. This is the new look of the Kurdish-majority Syrian northern regions, the outcome of the withdrawal of regime security forces in July 2012 and the result of a delicate coexistence between Baathist and Kurdish institutions.
Syrian Kurds now have the chance to reap the benefits from the stalemate between the regime and the Arab opposition. But all this would not have been possible without a certain degree of connivance with the regime by the main Kurdish militia on the ground — the Democratic Union Party (PYD), which is affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Regardless of the de facto autonomy achieved and the growing popularity of the PYD, some fear the authoritarian features of the party’s agenda.
Even the appearance of Qamishli, the main city of Syrian Kurdistan, brings evidence to the thesis of a tacit agreement between the PYD and the regime: Pictures of Bashar al-Assad and loyalist graffiti are still clearly visible in the industrial neighborhood. “Those dealing with the PYD are the same ones who were profiting from the regime before,” Ali Jazo, a Kurdish poet from the village of Amuda, told Al-Monitor.
The Asayish are the newly formed Kurdish security forces, and despite having been formally created by the Supreme Kurdish Committee (SKC, the Syrian Kurdish coalition grouping all political forces founded in Erbil in July 2012), they serve as the PYD's police. This security apparatus now counts 13 branches in Syrian Kurdistan, also covering ethnically mixed cities like Qamishli. “We abide by an internal statute, which was drafted by jurists belonging to the Kurdish Supreme Committee,” said Ahmad Darwish, the Asayish spokesman in Qamishli. His office is busy addressing the complaints of those who saw their smuggled cars seized by state intelligence forces. “We register new cars brought into the country with a yellow plate,” Darwish told Al-Monitor.
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