In the northeast corner of Syria, a pocket of stability is emerging
amid the country’s raging civil war. Here the talk is of building, not
bombing.
Local Kurdish leaders have launched projects to revive normal life and encourage people to stay. They are creating a regional administration, producing cheap fuel, subsidizing seeds for crops and trying to restore electricity to an area that had lost power for nearly 24 hours a day. And so far they are fighting off the forces of both President Bashar Assad and the rebels who want to oust him.
“We have no power or water. Food is short,” said Hardin, a 30-year-old teacher, shivering as cold rain began to fall at the funeral of a Kurdish fighter.
“But before, our minds and spirits were repressed. Now our dreams are becoming reality. This is the Kurdish moment. Going back to the way we were is not an option. It would be a betrayal of those who sacrificed their lives.”
The 30 million Kurds spread across Syria, Iraq, Iran and Turkey have been the world’s largest ethnic group without an independent homeland. Only the Kurds in Iraq, who displaced Iraqi forces in the 1990s when a U.S. and British no-fly zone was in place against Saddam Hussein, have carved out an area of real autonomy.
Now some of Syria’s 2.2 million Kurds sense an opportunity to take another step toward the long-term dream of creating an independent state of “Kurdistan.”
Recently, on the eve of peace talks in Switzerland, Kurds in Syria declared a provincial government in the area, after international powers rejected their request to send a separate delegation.
Local leaders insist they have no plans for secession but say they are preparing a local constitution and aim to hold polls early this year. This is not independence but “local democratic administration,” they say.
Read more: Kurds carve out autonomy as war rages | News , Middle East | THE DAILY STAR
Local Kurdish leaders have launched projects to revive normal life and encourage people to stay. They are creating a regional administration, producing cheap fuel, subsidizing seeds for crops and trying to restore electricity to an area that had lost power for nearly 24 hours a day. And so far they are fighting off the forces of both President Bashar Assad and the rebels who want to oust him.
“We have no power or water. Food is short,” said Hardin, a 30-year-old teacher, shivering as cold rain began to fall at the funeral of a Kurdish fighter.
“But before, our minds and spirits were repressed. Now our dreams are becoming reality. This is the Kurdish moment. Going back to the way we were is not an option. It would be a betrayal of those who sacrificed their lives.”
The 30 million Kurds spread across Syria, Iraq, Iran and Turkey have been the world’s largest ethnic group without an independent homeland. Only the Kurds in Iraq, who displaced Iraqi forces in the 1990s when a U.S. and British no-fly zone was in place against Saddam Hussein, have carved out an area of real autonomy.
Now some of Syria’s 2.2 million Kurds sense an opportunity to take another step toward the long-term dream of creating an independent state of “Kurdistan.”
Recently, on the eve of peace talks in Switzerland, Kurds in Syria declared a provincial government in the area, after international powers rejected their request to send a separate delegation.
Local leaders insist they have no plans for secession but say they are preparing a local constitution and aim to hold polls early this year. This is not independence but “local democratic administration,” they say.
Read more: Kurds carve out autonomy as war rages | News , Middle East | THE DAILY STAR
