Strategic Arab-Kurdish Alliance: Syria's Support of Kurdish Organisations during the Cold War

All major Kurdish political movements interacted with foreign states in search of resources and support. Besides superpowers, it was the Arab nationalist regime of Syria that cooperated with foreign Kurdish radical groups in the most stable way as well as instrumentalised them. The paper fills the gap in scholarship by focusing on Damascus' relations with the Iraqi Kurdish groups in the 1950s – 1990s and noting their significance for Syria's alliance with Kurdish militants from Turkey. What drove them, how the dynamics of these relations changed, what role did this cooperation play in Kurdish politics and which consequences it had? The most active phase of these relations included the 1970s and the 1980s. The Assad regime's Kurdish policies were closely related to Syria's rise as a regional power enabled by its tapping into external resources. These were provided by a number of states driven by Cold War developments. The paper focuses on the question of Kurdish own agency in such interactions: how the Kurdish groups succeeded or failed in avoiding dependency on the Syrian regime. The research relies on Iraqi, Iranian, Turkish and Soviet media reports and political documents of the time, archival records, memoirs.

所有主流库尔德政治运动均通过与外国政权互动以寻求资源与支持。除超级大国外，阿拉伯民族主义政权叙利亚是与外国库尔德激进团体开展最稳定合作并将其工具化的主体。本研究聚焦1950至1990年代大马士革与伊拉克库尔德团体的双边关系，并阐明其对叙利亚与土耳其库尔德武装结盟的重要意义，以此填补了学界相关研究空白。本研究旨在解答如下问题：是什么因素驱动了此类互动？双方关系的动态演变路径如何？此类合作在库尔德政治中发挥了何种作用？又产生了哪些后续影响？此类双边关系的活跃高峰期集中于1970年代与1980年代。阿萨德政权的库尔德政策，与叙利亚依托外部资源崛起为地区强国的进程紧密相关。此类外部资源由受冷战格局演变影响的多国提供。本研究同时关注库尔德团体在此类互动中的自身能动性：即库尔德团体如何成功或未能摆脱对叙利亚政权的依附。本研究的史料基础涵盖当时伊拉克、伊朗、土耳其与苏联的媒体报道、政治文件、档案记录及回忆录。