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Syria's Kurds Stand Alone after Rejecting Rebels and Regime
(National-Abu Dhabi) Aymenn Al Tamimi - A semiautonomous Kurdish community in Syria, with some parallels to the Kurdish Autonomous Region in Iraq, is a growing possibility. Leaders of Syrian Kurdish groups have made it clear they will not tolerate the spread of Syria's conflict into Kurdish-dominated areas. With Syrian Kurds declining to choose between Assad and the opposition, the idea of a de facto Kurdish autonomous area in the Al Jazira area of northeast Syria becomes a possibility. Note that the Kurdish areas of Turkey constitute at least 50% of the dreamed of Kurdistan. Ankara would not welcome an independent Kurdish state just south of its border, believing that such a state would increase the possibility of a Kurdish revolt in Turkey's southeast. The writer is an adjunct fellow at the Middle East Forum.