The SDF is demanding not rights but super-privileges, and draws its strength not from the Kurdish people but from the US and Israel

Although the period granted to it under the March 10 Agreement has ended, the SDF not only continued to drag its feet on taking the required steps, it continued its aggressive conduct from the areas it occupies in Aleppo. The operation launched by the Syrian government has shown the seriousness of its warnings to the SDF up to now, and that it also has the power to do what it says. This is no joke. The government that makes up Syria's current military structure toppled the Syrian Baathist army, backed by Iran and Russia as well, in an 11-day operation only a year ago. It is composed of vigorous forces that know every inch of Syria's land, have 14 years of every kind of war experience and, far more importantly, have very valid and very lofty reasons, motivations and beliefs for fighting.

SALAHUDDIN'S GRANDSONS ARE NOT IN THE SDF, THEY ARE IN THE SYRIAN ARMY

Indeed, in the first few hours of the operation, which began the moment it became clear that the SDF would not fulfill the conditions within the period granted, the Ashrafieh neighborhood that the organization occupied in Aleppo was cleared, and the complete fall of Sheikh Maqsoud is a matter of moments. The operation is entirely aimed at the organization; there is never any question of its being against the Kurdish people. A great many Kurds are even now fighting in the ranks of the Syrian army, which is made up entirely of volunteers. If Salahuddin's grandsons are to be sought, they will be found here. These know very well that the new Syria is built not on race but on the basis of the ummah, and they join it with great faith.

Even though the two large neighborhoods occupied by the SDF are areas where Kurds live in large numbers, this does not give the SDF, or any structure claiming to represent the Kurds, the right to form a separate autonomous entity within Aleppo.

HAVING AN ARMED FORCE GIVES RISE TO NO RIGHT

The SDF, and those in Türkiye who grant it this right in the name of Kurdish nationalism, have nothing to say on this. One who takes up a weapon and can seal off a place cannot claim rights in that place. And if he does, what he will encounter is clear. In Türkiye too we saw how the autonomism or statism they played at ended, when they supposedly dug trenches and sealed off certain places. Without obtaining the consent of the people they claim to represent, they brought their homes down on their heads, made their bedrooms a shield for themselves and the people inside a shield for themselves. And those people were Kurds too. Shame on them.

WHEN DID THEY REMEMBER WHOSE GRANDSONS OF SALAHUDDIN THEY ARE?

Some people are now trying to present the entirely justified operation of the Syrian government against the SDF as, again, one against the Kurds. What is more, they try to present it as al-Sharaa's war against the grandsons of Salahuddin al-Ayyubi. An interesting presentation, of course. When did they remember Salahuddin? Those who for years, with their Kurdishness, tried to put distance between themselves and Salahuddin, the Kurdish nationalists who tried to flee fersah after fersah from his shadow, suddenly take refuge in Salahuddin's legacy and try to present al-Sharaa and the new Syrian regime as the new enemy of the Kurds.

U.S. SUPPORT GIVES THE SDF NEITHER RIGHT NOR LEGITIMACY

Yet the very obvious truth they are trying to hide sticks out as plain as day: the SDF does not draw its power from truly representing the Kurdish people. It draws it entirely from the support it receives from the U.S. and Israel. And this support gives it neither legitimacy nor rightfulness. The betrayal they have committed against the peoples of the region through their cooperation with the U.S. and Israel so far suffices as both disgrace and blackening of the face. Let them now refrain from betraying the Kurds by smearing the Kurds with this disgrace.

The visible pretext for U.S. support to the SDF is the fight against DAESH. Yet the mask has now fallen, the dreadful face has been seen; the cap has fallen and the bald head has shown. DAESH has nothing to do either with the Syrian regime or with Muslims. It was an apparatus fabricated by the U.S. and Israel themselves precisely in order to produce a rescuer hero out of the SDF. Even now they can send it into the field whenever they want, at whatever setting they want, to burn. It has no social counterpart, and no ideological consistency at all.

The SDF has no power other than U.S. support. Even if it represented the Kurdish people, in the areas allocated to its control by the U.S. (Raqqa, Deir ez-Zor, Hasakah, all of the Eastern Euphrates) the Kurdish population relative to the Arabs does not exceed 15 percent. The right claimed today by the SDF, or by those who supposedly speak in the name of the Kurds in Syria, is not the cultural rights of the Kurds, or the recognition of their identity, or equal citizenship in Syria. These have already been secured by the current administration not only for Kurds but for all the other minorities too. Moreover, without being given minority status, by being recognized as equal citizens. But the right that the SDF claims and demands, unlike everyone else, is the right to form an armed force separate from the state and to control areas where the Kurds are a minority.

This is not a right but a demand for a super-privilege. Now the Kurdish nationalist circles are making a literature of grievance and victimhood in the name of the Kurds because this super-privilege is not being granted. The promises that the U.S.-Israel alliance gave in return for betraying the Syrian people are treated as acquired rights. Assad too, out of revenge against Türkiye, was content for the U.S. to carry out these operations on his own land and to hand the land over to the SDF as a gift. The PKK, moreover, was used against Türkiye for many years under Assad's patronage. In fact, those who now act as advocates for the SDF also have to be made to answer for the accounts of these years and of this betrayal.

BUT NOW THERE IS A NEW ERA AND A NEW SITUATION. SYRIA NOW BELONGS TO ITS OWN PEOPLE

Assad is gone, and the narcotics-massacre-occupation order that he caused in his country with his criminal, irresponsible and entirely personal ambitions has also run its course. In Syria there is a regime that is not seeking to use the Kurds but sees them as an inseparable part of its own people and as citizens equal to all its other people.

A DIVIDED SYRIA IS AN ISRAELI PROJECT

All that is expected is that the SDF give up its demand for super-privilege, nothing else.

No one is trying to victimize or oppress the Kurds. The Kurds will have all their cultural rights and will have a standing and trust they have never seen in Syrian history, as they do now. These are the settings the region has had for centuries. It has been voiced repeatedly by official mouths as well: trying to tamper with these settings and divide Syria is an Israeli project. Now it is time not for them but for the peoples of the region to embrace one another and to realize their own projects.