Publication

This paper examines the Kurdish Democratic Union Party’s (PYD) efforts to control Syria’s Jazira region after the al-Assad regime withdrew from it in 2012. The text’s author also reviews the history of governmental control in Jazira, the interests of external actors in the region, and what the future holds for the area. As a result of his analysis, the author ultimately concludes that 1) the PYD made the same mistake as the two Assad regimes before it – i.e., it privileged maintaining a secure hold on Jazira over establishing effective governance in the region; and 2) outside actors, such as Iraqi Kurdistan, Turkey and the US, have inadvertently reinforced the PYD’s security-focused rule while pursuing their own security agendas.