Syrian Kurds – Forgotten No More

By Bulent Aliriza

Bulent Aliriza has been the founding director of the Turkey Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, DC, since 1994. He has lectured widely in the United States, Europe, and Turkey and is a frequent media commentator on Turkish foreign policy and domestic politics. Prior to joining CSIS, Aliriza was a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He had previously served as a Turkish Cypriot diplomat in New York and Washington. He has a B.Sc. in international relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a doctorate in diplomatic history from the University of Oxford.

Syria has by far the smallest Kurdish population of any country with major Kurdish minorities. However, in the last two years, the Kurds of Syria have risen to local, regional, and international prominence. As the civil war grinds on, Syria’s main Kurdish political group, the PYD, has become America’s principal ally in the fight against ISIS. The PYD  is being courted by Russia and now controls the largest chunk of territory in Syria behind the Syrian government itself. The Cipher Brief’s Fritz Lodge spoke with Bulent Aliriza, director of the Turkey Project at CSIS, about Syria’s Kurds and the future of their semi-autonomous state in Syria.

The Cipher Brief: Who are the Syrian Kurds, what is their history in Syria and where do they stand today?

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