Turkey's Problems Grow with a Syrian Kurdish Move for Autonomy

That a Kurdish group would declare autonomy from Syria's currently fragmented state was inevitable, but Turkey is now facing a spread of Kurdish separatism at the same time it is facing mounting obstacles in its current peace track with the Kurdistan Workers' Party within its borders. The Kurdish Democratic Union Party, the largest and most organized Kurdish group in Syria, plans to claim autonomy from the Syrian government July 19. Within three months it intends to hold general elections and a constitutional referendum to formalize Kurdish administration in the densely Kurdish-populated parts of northeast Syria.

Turkey's government currently lacks the means to forcibly suppress the spread of Kurdish separatism in the region, much less secure a comprehensive peace with Kurdish militants in Turkey. However, Syrian Kurds will be far more limited than their Iraqi counterparts in their ability to consolidate control over an economically viable autonomous zone. Driven by competing strategic interests, Turkey and the Syrian regime will try to play off competing factions in the Kurdish and Sunni rebel landscape, which will only augment infighting in the Syrian Kurdish region and undermine the Democratic Union Party's attempt to consolidate power. At the same time, Turkey will struggle to ensure that the Kurdish political evolution in Syria does not revive the Kurdish insurgency inside Turkey as Ankara's own peace process starts to derail.