ALEPPO, SyriaThe small dirt track bustled with activity. Men wheeled carts of produce as women shuffled past with heavy loads balanced on their heads. Children selling snacks pestered the passing crowds.
The track wound through a green field of grazing goats. At one end, fighters of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) stood guard. To the left, snipers of Bashar al-Assad's government were said to be monitoring activity.
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At the other end, caught in the middle of these two opposing sides, the buildings of Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrefeya -- Aleppo's Kurdish neighborhoods -- towered over the scene. A third force guarded the entry to this region: the Democratic Union Party, a Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, and the backbone of a Kurdish coalition that now controls much of Syrian Kurdistan.
"We chose not to be either with the regime or with the opposition," said Sinam Muhammad, co-president of the People's Council for Western Kurdistan and a member of the High Supreme Kurdish Committee. "We chose another way, a third line, which is a peaceful and democratic line to get our rights as Kurdish people."
Ethnic Kurds account for 11 percent of the Syrian population; about the same percentage as the Alawite minority that dominates the government. But under the Assad regime, the Kurds were oppressed and, until April 2011, were denied status as Syrian citizens. Their cultural celebrations, literature and traditions were banned, the Kurdish language forbidden in schools.
Despite such repression, Kurdish authorities have declined to take a side in the Syrian revolution that began more than two years ago and has since resulted in the deaths of more than 70,000 Syrians.
Instead, taking advantage of the power void left in the wake of opposition and government clashes, the Kurds gained control of large amounts of the Syrian Kurdish region with little government resistance last July.
They have since periodically clashed with both FSA and regime troops. Some say a united front between the Arabs and Kurds could turn the tide of the revolution against Bashar al-Assad. Others accuse the Kurdish parties of making deals with the regime. But according to Muhammad, the only interests her party serves are those of the Kurdish people.
"We do not attack anybody," said the charismatic leader. "But we will not allow anyone to enter our Kurdish places -- this is a red line. Whoever attacks us we are ready to defend against them."
On the Kurdish side of the civilian crossing -- the only one that connects FSA territory with the Kurdish zone -- the streets bustled with activity. From the main street, only the echo of distant gunfire and mortars revealed the presence of the war that raged all around.
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Until recently, residents here had escaped the worst of Aleppo's attacks and bombings, but the front lines creep closer each day, and some areas of Ashrefeya have already been caught in the crossfire of FSA and regime battles. Kurdish forces have so far kept clear of the battle zones leading many to suggest the "red lines" of the Kurdish forces may be somewhat fluid.
"There is no doubt that the PKK are dealing with the regime," said Bashar Ismael, one of a small number of Kurds who has joined the FSA. "They were supposed to protect the Kurdish areas, that's their job. When the regime army came into Ashrefeya, they retreated. And Sheikh Maqsoud is filled with shabiha [government militia]. What are they doing there?"
Ismael said the Kurds have been somewhat segregated from the Arabs for generations, largely due to the inequality imposed by the Syrian government. Although the Kurds have been lobbying against the regime for years, he said most saw "the Arab Spring, as the name suggests, as an Arab uprising."
Ismael said support for the Kurdish rulers comes largely through fear.
"They know that there is no one else to protect them," he said, cautioning that this continued fence sitting could come down hard on the Kurdish people whichever way the revolution ends.
Source: http://www.news.theusalinks.com/2013/03/25/kurds-in-syria-a-struggle-within-a-struggle/
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