Vers l'Autonomie d'une Région Kurde

""... These men want an autonomous Kurdish region in what is now Syria, a prospect they see as a step toward fulfilling a centuries-old dream of linking the Kurdish minorities in Iraq, Turkey and Iran into an independent nation.
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Against the backdrop of the raging civil war, Syrian Kurds have already etched out a measure of autonomy in their territories — not because they have taken up arms against the government, but because the government has relinquished Kurdish communities to local control, allowing the Kurds to gain a head start on self-rule. Kurdish flags fly over former government buildings in those areas, and schools have opened that teach in the Kurdish language, something the Assad government had prohibited. 
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Oppressed for decades under Arab autocrats, denied rights by one post-Ottoman Turkish leader after another, and betrayed after World War I by Allied powers who had once promised Kurdish independence, this time the Kurds are determined to seize the upheaval of the Arab Spring and bend history to their will. The civil war in Syria, whose nearly two million Kurds are mostly clustered near its northeastern border with Turkey, has excited the aspirations for statehood that the Kurds have held for centuries. These dreams have been kept in abeyance since the Western victors of World War I set down arbitrary new borders for the Middle East that divided the Kurdish people among four nations: Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran. “It’s a historical moment for the Kurds to take advantage of, to achieve change,” said Kawa Azizi, a Syrian who is a professor of politics and a Kurdish opposition politician. He works out of Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdish region, serving now as a hub for the Syrian Kurdish militia and civilian activities. When the uprising began nearly 18 months ago, some observers worried that the Kurds could make common cause with Mr. Assad in exchange for more rights and autonomy. Many described the Kurds as sitting on the fence, waiting to choose sides. Many Kurds dispute that analysis. They say they have always hated President Assad. In ceding control of the Kurdish cities, the Assad government has been able to focus its heavy weapons on the fight with the Sunni-led opposition. The move has also antagonized Turkey, which has supported the opposition but worries that an autonomous Kurdish region in Syria could become a free zone for Kurdish insurgents to launch attacks on Turkey. In Turkey, the fight with the P.K.K. has recently resulted in casualties at a level not seen since the late 1990s, according to a recent report published by the International Crisis Group. Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has suggested that Turkey has a right to intervene in Syria’s Kurdish areas if it believes Turkey’s security is under threat. The Kurds of Syria, divided among more than a dozen factions of shifting alliances, seem united in at least two respects: they are opposed to the Assad government, but deeply suspicious of the ambitions of the Free Syrian Army. “First of all, they are Arabs,” Mr. Azizi said of the Free Syrian Army. “We do not want the Arabs to control us.” While there is little fighting in the Syrian Kurdish towns, and officials interviewed in Iraq say that a measure of calm has settled over the areas, Kurdish refugees are steadily streaming into northern Iraq. Refugees say government intelligence operatives are still harassing Kurds, and threatening them if they do not join the government’s army. 
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 As Mr. Suleiman drank peach nectar and smoked cigarette after cigarette, he explained that the Kurds were never on the fence in Syria’s uprising. “We suffered a lot,” he said. “Now it’s time that we stand and have our own region so we can get our rights.” The Syrian military has kept a low profile in Kurdish areas. For now, with the focus on Syria, Kurdish leaders acknowledge the ambition of an independent nation that unites the Kurdish communities in Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq, but they say they will settle for independence within a united Syria — as an interim step. In the Middle East, historical grievances are never fully in the past, but only prologue to current circumstances. As some Kurds see it, the historical roots of their oppression stretch back centuries, to the exploits of a Muslim Kurdish warrior named Saladin, the first sultan of Egypt, who achieved victory over European crusaders in the 12th century. Some Kurds believe that what followed in the 20th century — the denial of a Kurdish state by the allies after World War I, support by the international community for Arab autocrats who shunned Kurds as second-class citizens, policies of forcibly removing Kurds from their lands and resettling Arabs, the gassing of the Kurds by Saddam Hussein — was cosmic retribution for Saladin’s victories. Mr. Azizi, the professor and politician, said: “The West had been punishing us for what he did. Now I think that punishment is over.” "

September 28, 2012 

By TIM ARANGO DOHUK
Duraid Adnan and an Iraqi employee of The New York Times contributed reporting from Dohuk and Erbil
source : http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/29/world/middleeast/kurds-to-pursue-more-autonomy-in-a-fallen-syria.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120929&pagewanted=print

Les problèmes rencontrés par les Kurdes à vivre une certaine autonomie, constituent l'arrière plan géo-historique depuis le début du XXe siécle, source quasi certaine de la profonde réorganisation à venir de cette région. On parlait continuellement, depuis longtemps et sans tabou politique, des Palestiniens, les bouleversements géo-politiques depuis l'interventions des USA en Irak, à l'évidence vont mettre sous les feux de la rampe leur problèmes. Les jougs de la Turquie et de l'Iran, compliqueront encore la donne.