The Kurds at crisis point

The recent escalation of violence between Kurdish-led forces and Turkish-backed Islamist militias in northern Syria has opened a new chapter in the long struggle for a Kurdish state.

In recent years, Syria’s Kurds have enjoyed some notable military and political successes. They helped defeat Isis, pushed back Syrian government forces and established a semi-autonomous area in which they were the main political actors. With tactical support from the US, they built a political entity almost free from ethnic and religious persecution – one that promoted equality, democracy and universal human rights.

But in October 2019, Donald Trump announced he was withdrawing US forces from northern Syria, triggering a chain of events that saw bloodshed and chaos returning to the Turkey-Syria borderlands.