ASSESSMENTS

Can Syria's Kurds Hold the Ground They've Gained?

Mar 19, 2018 | 09:00 GMT

Military police members of the Kurdish People's Protection Units march in al-Muabbadah in northern Syria on Feb. 24, 2018.

Military police members of the Kurdish People's Protection Units march in al-Muabbadah in northern Syria on Feb. 24, 2018, to denounce Turkey's military campaign against Kurdish forces in Afrin.

(DELIL SOULEIMAN/AFP/Getty Images)

Highlights

  • Turkey's offensive in Afrin reveals the limits of Kurdish aspirations for autonomy in northern Syria.
  • The United States protects Kurdish fighters in Syria as part of the Syrian Democratic Forces, but that protection will not last.
  • Syrian Kurds will be exposed to a permanent threat from both Ankara and Damascus, one that threatens the future existence of their semi-autonomous Rojava region.

The tyranny of the map haunts Syria's Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG). Turkey's offensive in Afrin, the northwestern canton largely controlled by the YPG, is reminding Syria's Kurds that their journey to independence, or even autonomy, must always go beneath the geographic shadows cast by Turkey to the north and Damascus to the south....

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