Syrian Kurds fearful after Erdogan victory

Syria's Kurds on Monday said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's election victory left them fearful, following years of repeated attacks and threats against their semi-autonomous region.

"As Kurds, we didn't want Erdogan to be re-elected," said Hozan Abu Bakr, 30, who owns a clothes shop in the northeastern city of Qamishli.

"Turkey has been practicing injustice against the Kurds for 10 years."

Amid the chaos of Syria's long-running civil conflict, Syria's Kurds have carved out a semi-autonomous area in the country's north and east.

US-supported Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Kurds' de facto army in the area, led the battle that dislodged Islamic State group fighters from the last scraps of their Syrian territory in 2019.

But Ankara considers the People's Protection Units (YPG) — which dominate the SDF — as an offshoot of the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), designated as a terrorist group by Turkey and its Western allies.

Since 2016, Turkey has carried out successive ground operations to expel Kurdish forces from border areas of northern Syria, and Erdogan has made threats of a new incursion.

"We hoped that someone else would have won so they can leave us be," said Hizny Suleiman, 32, a shop owner in the main market of Qamishli, one of the semi-autonomous administration's most important cities.

"We fear that Erdogan will attack our regions again, [and] displace our people."

'We want peace'

Turkey supported early rebel efforts to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and maintains a military presence in northern stretches of the war-torn country that angers Damascus.

Erdogan has long sought to establish a "safe zone" 30 kilometers (20 miles) deep the whole length of the frontier.

Mohammed Ashraf, who owns an electrical supplies shop in the market, said: "We don't want to fight Turkey."

"We don't want (Turkey) to start a war with us because the region is already in a state of war.

"All we want ... is peace," he added.

The conflict in Syria has killed more than 500,000 people, displaced millions and battered the country's infrastructure and industry since it broke out in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.

In November, Turkey launched air strikes on Kurdish-held areas of Syria and Iraq in response to a deadly bombing in Istanbul the previous week.

In April, Syria's semi-autonomous Kurdish administration said it was ready for talks with Damascus, as the government's frosty ties with Arab states have thawed.

The Kurds have avoided open hostilities with Assad's forces, except for some skirmishes, and maintained good ties with both US and Russian forces.

Erdogan 'cannot be predicted'

Erdogan has been courting a presidential summit with Assad, and regime-backer Russia said this month that a roadmap to normalize ties between Syria and Turkey would be drafted following a meeting of their foreign ministers in Moscow.

Assad's government rejects the Kurdish administration and accuses it of "separatism."

Several rounds of talks since 2018 between Damascus and the Kurds — who control most of Syria's major oil and gas fields — have failed to achieve any results.

Analysts said any reconciliation between Erdogan and Assad was likely to be to the detriment of the Kurds.

"Erdogan's victory is certainly a negative development for the Kurds generally, especially Kurds of Turkey and Syria," said Kurdish affairs analyst Mutlu Civiroglu.

"Kurds in Syria who have long been subject to ongoing assaults by Erdogan may face even more increased pressure, drone attacks and further empowerment of Turkey-backed Syrian armed groups," he said.

Saleh Muslim, longtime co-chair of the Democratic Union Party, the political arm of the YPG, said: "Erdogan's behavior cannot be predicted, but Kurds will pay the price of any rapprochement between him and Assad."

"We must be ready for all possible scenarios," he added.

"Erdogan's plan is based on wiping out Kurds everywhere, including the Syrian Kurds if he finds the means," Muslim said.