Syria and the Kurds

Kurdish leader has said that one of their negotiating counterparts in Damascus questioned whether the registration of Kurdi, the Kurdish language, in the Syrian constitution could one day lead to establishing whistled languages in Syria.

The Syrian-Kurdish negotiator said there shouldn’t be an issue with whistled languages if they could be understood.

This constitutional debate sums up the relationship between Damascus and Qamishli. Over the years, the two sides never came close to each other. Rather, the gap has deepened, suspicion has exacerbated, and the ideology has been imbued with the national dispute.

Presently, Syrian officials heavily doubt the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and its primary component, the People's Defense Units (YPG), a mainly Kurdish militia. With US support, the SDF and the YPG control around a quarter of Syria’s territory and most of the country’s wealth.

Syrian officials have accused the SDF and YPG of “treason,” “conspiring with US occupying forces on dividing Syria,” and “having a separatist agenda.”

As for Kurdish officials, they accuse the Syrian regime of “seeking to turn back the clock to pre-2011,” “holding onto a Baathist chauvinistic mentality” and “refusing to make any real political concessions.”

Damascus insists that the SDF and its political wing, the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), sign a document that includes a commitment to four key items that include recognizing President Bashar al-Assad as president of the whole country, adhering to Syria’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, respecting the Syrian flag as the only symbol of the country, and supporting the Syrian Army.

Moreover, Damascus is requesting the SDF join the Syrian Army.

This “four-item document” hangs on the gate of the headquarters where negotiations are held, awaiting the signatures.

Meanwhile, Qamishli’s negotiating delegation is clinging to the recognition of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) as a part of Syria and adapting laws, such as the Local Administration Law No. 107, to fit this acknowledgment.

Moreover, they are requesting that the Syrian constitution comes to recognize Kurdi as an official language. Maintaining the SDF’s independence from any future Syrian Army and the equitable distribution of the strategic wealth controlled by the SDF are also among Qamishli’s demands.

In depth, Damascus is betting on time.

It believes that a day will come when the US will withdraw from northeastern Syria as it withdrew from Afghanistan. It is convinced that a day will come when Washington will betray the Kurds, as it has throughout history.

Damascus is also betting on its allies in Tehran and Moscow and its opponents in Ankara.

The Kurds are also counting on time and allies. With the passage of time, they expect for temporary realities to turn into “permanent solutions.”

Additionally, the Kurds are depending on their military might, organizational nerve and ideological stock.

Their agenda is also hinged on Western concerns about the return of ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

Developments in the Damascus-Qamishli relationship are contingent on what is happening between the Syrian capital and Ankara.

Thanks to Russia, the winds of normalization of ties are blowing hard between Syria and Türkiye. This is a major concern to the Kurds.

During secret negotiations in Moscow, Syrian and Turkish security officials exchanged many conditions that could lead up to the normalization of ties.

Damascus wants Ankara to present a timetable for the withdrawal of Turkish forces from Syria. It also wants Türkiye to quit supporting Syrian opposition factions. Retaking Idlib and reopening the strategic M4 highway connecting Aleppo to Latakia, are also among Damascus’ demands.

Moreover, the Syrian capital is asking Türkiye to help in supporting reconstruction efforts and circumventing Western sanctions.

Ankara wants to work against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and its Syrian wing, the “YPG.”

The Turkish capital is also seeking to set up security cooperation to control borders. It also wants the return of Syrian refugees, the establishment of safe areas 30 kilometers deep into Syrian territory, and the facilitation of the work of the Syrian Constitutional Committee.

There are demands, counterclaims and deep disputes. But what is certain is that the level of Kurdish concern is growing against the background of preparations to start coordination between Damascus and Ankara to fight the “Kurdish separatist entity.”

A secret Syrian-Turkish-Iranian agreement under Russian auspices on the sidelines of a summit in Tehran last July has seen the three countries exchanging security information.

This allowed for the escalation of Turkish drone strikes against SDF and PKK leaders.

Some strikes even hit the outskirts of US bases east of the Euphrates. For its part, the US kept silent on the strikes because it is unwilling to anger Ankara, a key player whose role is growing in the Ukrainian war.

Moscow’s mediation has also been active between Damascus and Qamishli. However, Moscow has called on SDF leader Mazloum Abdi to head to Damascus to accept and sign the four-item document. It also urged coordinating military deployments between the SDF and the Syrian Army east of the Euphrates.

Moscow is seeking to open a debate between the Syrian government and the opposition through the constitutional gate.

Russia’s latest proposal is to abandon Geneva as a venue for the meetings of the Constitutional Committee, facilitated by the international community and UN envoy Geir Pedersen.

Instead, Russia wants to hold constitutional meetings in a sequential form in Ankara, Moscow, and Isfahan.

Russia’s goal is to turn the constitutional debate into a platform for normalization of ties between Damascus and Ankara, excluding Washington and its allies from the Syrian political track.

Golden fields of wheat no longer produce the bounty they once did in Morocco. A six-year drought has imperiled the country's entire agriculture sector, including farmers who grow cereals and grains used to feed humans and livestock.

The North African nation projects this year's harvest will be smaller than last year in both volume and acreage, putting farmers out of work and requiring more imports and government subsidies to prevent the price of staples like flour from rising for everyday consumers.

"In the past, we used to have a bounty — a lot of wheat. But during the last seven or eight years, the harvest has been very low because of the drought," said Al Housni Belhoussni, a small-scale farmer who has long tilled fields outside of the city of Kenitra.

Belhoussni's plight is familiar to grain farmers throughout the world confronting a hotter and drier future. Climate change is imperiling the food supply and shrinking the annual yields of cereals that dominate diets around the world — wheat, rice, maize and barley.

In North Africa, among the regions thought of as most vulnerable to climate change, delays to annual rains and inconsistent weather patterns have pushed the growing season later in the year and made planning difficult for farmers.

In Morocco, where cereals account for most of the farmed land and agriculture employs the majority of workers in rural regions, the drought is wreaking havoc and touching off major changes that will transform the makeup of the economy. It has forced some to leave their fields fallow. It has also made the areas they do elect to cultivate less productive, producing far fewer sacks of wheat to sell than they once did.

In response, the government has announced restrictions on water use in urban areas — including on public baths and car washes — and in rural ones, where water going to farms has been rationed.

"The late rains during the autumn season affected the agriculture campaign. This year, only the spring rains, especially during the month of March, managed to rescue the crops," said Abdelkrim Naaman, the chairman of Nalsya. The organization has advised farmers on seeding, irrigation and drought mitigation as less rain falls and less water flows through Morocco's rivers.

The Agriculture Ministry estimates that this year's wheat harvest will yield roughly 3.4 million tons (3.1 billion kilograms), far less than last year's 6.1 million tons (5.5 billion kilograms) — a yield that was still considered low. The amount of land seeded has dramatically shrunk as well, from 14,170 square miles (36,700 square kilometers) to 9,540 square miles (24,700 square kilometers).

Such a drop constitutes a crisis, said Driss Aissaoui, an analyst and former member of the Moroccan Ministry for Agriculture.

"When we say crisis, this means that you have to import more," he said. "We are in a country where drought has become a structural issue."

Leaning more on imports means the government will have to continue subsidizing prices to ensure households and livestock farmers can afford dietary staples for their families and flocks, said Rachid Benali, the chairman of the farming lobby COMADER.

The country imported nearly 2.5 million tons of common wheat between January and June. However, such a solution may have an expiration date, particularly because Morocco's primary source of wheat, France, is facing shrinking harvests as well.

The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization ranked Morocco as the world's sixth-largest wheat importer this year, between Türkiye and Bangladesh, which both have much bigger populations.

"Morocco has known droughts like this and in some cases known droughts that las longer than 10 years. But the problem, this time especially, is climate change," Benali said.

Syria and the Kurds