The main Syrian-Kurdish opposition alliance that is part of the Turkish-backed Sunni opposition against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said that it is freezing its activities within the umbrella group. The Kurdish National Council, which brings together 17 Syrian-Kurdish parties and civil society groups, declared on Sept. 19 that it made the decision after the Syrian National Coalition had failed to both prevent and end systematic violations against its ethnic Kurdish brethren in Afrin. The continuing standoff could upend the balance of power within the already fractious Sunni opposition, with the KNC resuming dialogue with Turkey’s US-supported Syrian-Kurdish foes, the umbrella group’s president, Sleiman Oso, told Al-Monitor in an exclusive interview that was conducted on Sept. 22. 

The SNC has yet to respond to the KNC’s request for a meeting, let alone address its grievances.

The KNC suspended its activities once before within the anti-Assad coalition in 2019 and only resumed them following SNC pledges that their complaints would be addressed. They were not, and the violations have only increased, Oso said, adding that the KNC could consider resuming US-brokered unity talks with the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria. The self-styled government has — since the near full withdrawal of Syrian regime forces in 2012 — run the majority Kurdish areas of northern Syria and some Arab majority regions where the bulk of the country’s oil is located.

The immediate trigger for the current crisis was the Sept. 15 murder in Afrin of an ethnic Kurdish woman, Nazila Tola, who was among dozens of demonstrators protesting a levy imposed by the Turkish-backed factions on olive farming, with owners having to cough up an extortionate $8 per tree. The alleged perpetrators were members of the Suleiman Shah Brigade, or Amshat, a Sunni Arab faction supported by Turkey that is notorious for its brutal criminality, as previously documented by Al-Monitor. The factions have appropriated the homes of thousands of Kurds displaced by Turkish military operations and refuse to return them, Oso said.