Publication

This paper analyzes how the potential for Kurdish autonomy within northern Syria threatens to destabilize the region and further increase tensions between Syria and Turkey and the wider region. Turkey views this as a threat to its territorial integrity of the country, while also still facing a deteriorating crisis within its own borders in its struggles with the PKK. The author argues that the nature of Turkey's relationship with the the Kurds of northern Iraq may ease anxieties surrounding potential Kurdish autonomy in Syria. However, any solutions will not be sustainable unless Turkey finds a solution to its own Kurdish problem.