[Hurriyet] The rise to prominence of the Kurds in Syria is among the less expected consequences of the civil war raging since 2011. Thought to amount to over 2 million of the population mostly in the north of the country, the Kurds have also become one of the key U.S. allies in the stuttering campaign against the jihadists of ISIS.
“Out of Nowhere: The Kurds of Syria in Peace and War” by Michael M. Gunter, a professor of political science at Tennessee Technological University, charts the Syrian Kurds’ rise to international profile from a “sleepy unimportant backwater in the Kurdish struggle.” It is a short book but it provides a good background to the rapidly changing situation on the ground, taking in the modern history of the Syrian Kurds, their development of “national conscience,” and ties between the Democratic Union Party (PYD) in northern Syria and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Turkey.
Gunter spoke to HDN about his book (reviewed here) and developments in Syria since it was published.
| A quick backgrounder on the Kurds of Syria in modern times. |
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