By Dr. Adnan Bozan

What is unfolding in Hasakah cannot be understood merely as a series of passing demonstrations, a political dispute over the Syrian flag, or a demand for the return of state institutions to northeastern Syria. Rather, it must be examined within a broader context in which Syrian-Turkish intelligence calculations, the future of the Kurdish question, the trajectory of relations between the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Turkish state, and Israel’s activities and political and security understandings in southern Syria—all of which affect Syrian sovereignty—intersect. From the perspective advanced here, these developments are not isolated events, but interconnected episodes in a political and security contest aimed at reshaping Syria’s internal landscape, weakening the Kurdish position, and diverting Syrians’ attention toward internal conflicts, while realities along the southern borders continue to change and regional balances are being reconfigured at the expense of Syrian society and the rights of its constituent communities.

To understand the dimensions of this political and security manoeuvring, it is necessary to return to the beginning. Just days ago, Syrians took to the streets in several cities to protest deteriorating living conditions, rising prices, spreading poverty, the inability to secure basic necessities, and the economic and social circumstances that have exhausted broad segments of society. At their core, the demands concerned the everyday struggles of Syrian citizens, burdened by years of war and economic collapse and no longer able to bear additional hardships. Yet the course of events soon took a different turn, shifting the scene into a different political and security context. In Hasakah, the trajectory changed abruptly: part of the public discourse moved away from demands concerning living conditions towards slogans touching on national identity and political sovereignty, with the Syrian flag being raised in opposition to Kurdish symbols, alongside the raising of flags associated with the Al-Nusra Front and ISIS and the chanting of slogans directed against pluralism and minorities.

This is where the real question begins: Why should a crisis over living conditions, affecting Syrians of different ethnicities and affiliations, turn into a political confrontation targeting a region with a longstanding Kurdish presence? Why is the debate being shifted away from poverty, rising prices, and citizens’ rights towards a struggle over Hasakah’s identity and the place of the Kurds in Syria? Who benefits from pushing Syrian society into an ethnic confrontation at a time when the country faces economic, sovereignty-related, and security challenges on multiple fronts?

At the heart of what this political analysis identifies as intelligence-driven manoeuvring is the redirection of public anger away from living conditions and public policy and towards conflict between the components of society. Citizens are thus drawn into confrontation with one another, while disagreements over state governance become disputes over identity, belonging, and rights. Instead of focusing on poverty, the authorities’ responsibility for addressing the economic crisis, Israeli incursions in the south, and the understandings concerning the future of Syrian territory, public debate is redirected towards Hasakah, the Kurds, the flag, and ethnic slogans. In this way, a social crisis becomes a crisis of identity, and citizens who should be asserting their rights are turned into participants in an internal confrontation that drains society as a whole.

This shift is no incidental detail in the Syrian landscape. When protests over living conditions are exploited to intensify ethnic polarisation, the political consequences extend far beyond the demonstrations themselves. Economic demands recede into the background, while accusations of disloyalty and ethnic labelling move to the forefront. Each side begins to perceive the other as a threat to its very existence. At that point, the conditions become ripe for the reproduction of old conflicts through new instruments, amid a governing authority seeking to consolidate central control, regional states pursuing their own interests, and a society that has yet to recover from the consequences of war and division.

The problem is not the raising of the Syrian flag itself, but its instrumentalization to exclude the Kurds from Syria. The Syrian flag could serve as a symbol of a shared homeland bringing together Arabs, Kurds, Syriacs, Assyrians, Armenians, Druze, and all other communities. However, when it is raised in a context of rhetoric that denies pluralism, places the identity of an established component of society under suspicion, or makes national belonging conditional on abandoning national rights, the issue extends beyond the symbol to the political project being advanced through it. No one has the right to monopolise the definition of patriotism, and neither an authority nor a group may turn Kurdish rights into a bargaining chip under the slogan of Syrian unity.

More alarming still are reports surrounding the events in Hasakah that these activities have been accompanied by exclusionary slogans or symbols associated with extremist organisations. If confirmed, such reports would reveal the danger of rhetoric deployed to inflame divisions and reproduce the exclusionary mindset that Syria endured for decades. Instead of building a state that recognises ethnic and cultural diversity, the country is being pushed towards a homogenising conception of statehood—one that does not regard difference as a source of social and political richness, but treats it as an obstacle to be subdued or neutralised.

The Kurds are not guests in Syria, nor does their presence there depend on a decision by a party, organisation, or governing authority. They are an integral part of Syrian society, with their own history, national identity, and legitimate rights. Their existence does not contradict the unity of the country. Consequently, transforming a political dispute with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) into a campaign targeting the Kurds as an ethnic community represents a shift from a dispute over power to the targeting of a society, and from disagreement over the structure of the state to an attempt to redefine who is entitled to be a partner in it.

The significance of this shift becomes clearer when viewed against the backdrop of the agreements between Syria’s new authorities and the now-dissolved Syrian Democratic Forces. Arguments advanced by opponents of these forces have included accusations of links to Qandil and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, as well as claims that the independence of their military and administrative structures poses a threat to Syria’s unity. Within this framework, integrating their forces and institutions into the state has been presented as the principal means of ending the dispute and addressing its underlying causes.

But what happens when relations enter a phase of agreement and integration, only for political and social escalation targeting the Kurds to continue? This is where the contradiction emerges, revealing the depth of the crisis. If the problem is confined to the military structure of the Syrian Democratic Forces, an understanding on integration should open the way to resolving that issue. If, however, the Kurdish people continue to be targeted after institutional understandings have been reached, then the issue extends beyond the organisation of armed forces to encompass the struggle over Kurdish national and political rights and the Kurds’ place in the new state.

The instruments may have changed, but the essence of the conflict remains. In the previous phase, pressure on the Kurds was exerted under the banner of combating terrorism and ending cross-border military affiliations. In the current phase, that pressure may shift towards the streets, ethnic rhetoric, challenges to the Kurds’ national belonging, and the creation of tensions between Arabs, Kurds, and other communities. In this way, the objective is no longer merely to integrate a military force into a government institution, but to reshape the political and social environment in which Kurdish forces operate and diminish their capacity to defend their people’s rights.

From this perspective, what is unfolding in Hasakah represents a transition from direct military pressure to political and social pressure, with the integration process itself potentially becoming a means of rearranging the balance of power. The side that had been called upon to relinquish its military autonomy now faces a new discourse that extends beyond its forces to encompass society, identity, symbols, and rights. Consequently, concessions on the military file may prove insufficient to end the conflict, because the deeper issue concerns who has the authority to determine the shape of the new Syria and who has the right to participate in shaping its future.

In this context, Turkey occupies a central position in understanding the situation. Ankara does not view the Kurdish question in Syria as an internal matter detached from its security calculations. Rather, it links the issue to the PKK file, the future of the Kurdish political movement in the region, and the nature of military and political arrangements along its southern border. From this standpoint, any change in the status of the Syrian Democratic Forces or in relations between Damascus and Kurdish forces carries significance for Turkey that extends beyond Syria’s borders.

The Syrian-Turkish intelligence manoeuvring, as interpreted here, rests on exploiting the convergence of interests between the two sides. Syria’s new authorities seek to expand central control and bring local institutions and forces under their authority, while Turkey seeks to dismantle the military structure it considers linked to the PKK and to reduce the Kurdish movement’s capacity to operate across borders. When these objectives converge, pressure on the Kurds in Syria becomes part of a broader regional equation rather than merely a local dispute over administration or security.

The danger of this equation is not confined to the future of the Syrian Democratic Forces; it also extends to the trajectory of relations between the PKK and Turkey. This process has entered a sensitive phase amid discussions about ending the armed conflict, disarmament, and redefining the relationship between the Turkish state and the Kurdish movement. Under such circumstances, the Syrian arena becomes a significant factor in Turkey’s domestic calculations, because what happens to the Kurds in Syria affects the calculations of the wider Kurdish movement, the balance of negotiations, and the nature of the guarantees that may be secured.

In our assessment, sustained pressure on Syrian Kurds could become an indirect instrument for influencing Turkey’s domestic political process. When Kurds in Syria face political and security threats alongside exclusionary rhetoric, the Kurdish movement across the region confronts an increasingly complex dilemma: how can Kurdish political forces practically defend their people’s presence and rights in Syria while the political process with Turkey comes under growing pressure? And how can the exploitation of Syria’s crises be prevented from being used to extract concessions from the broader Kurdish movement?

The Syrian Kurds are not merely a card in the hands of the PKK. They are a people with their own interests, rights, and aspirations. Targeting them or placing them under pressure because of cross-border political affiliations means turning their rights into an instrument of regional conflict instead of recognising them as inherent rights of Syrian citizens. This is what makes the issue larger than the dispute between Ankara and the now-dissolved Syrian Democratic Forces: it concerns a people’s right not to become hostage to security understandings between states.

From this perspective, pressure on Hasakah serves a dual purpose. It strengthens the position of the central authorities against demands for political or administrative arrangements that safeguard the region’s particular characteristics, while placing the Syrian Kurdish question within a regional framework of pressure shaped by Turkey’s calculations and its position on the PKK. In this sense, the conflict is no longer merely a dispute over the administration of a region; it becomes part of a broader attempt to reshape the Kurdish political sphere and diminish its ability to influence the future of Syria and the region.

The most dangerous dimension of this manoeuvring, however, lies in the exploitation of ethnic divisions to ignite discord between Kurds, Arabs, and other Syrian communities. When society is encouraged to believe that one group’s rights can be achieved only at the expense of another, the foundations necessary for building a shared state are undermined. When Arabs come to regard Kurds as adversaries, Kurds become a source of fear for Arabs, and Syriacs or Assyrians find themselves anxious about their existence and future, shared interests give way to competing identities.

Entrenching such discord serves every actor seeking to weaken Syrian society from within. Instead of a broad social movement emerging to demand improved living conditions, institutional reconstruction, protection of sovereignty, and guaranteed rights, each community becomes preoccupied with defending itself against the others. Rather than serving as an opportunity to hold public policies accountable for the economic crisis, that crisis becomes the backdrop for an ethnic conflict that consumes public anger and redirects it towards internal adversaries.

Here, the political function of distraction becomes apparent. The objective need not be to convince Syrians that poverty no longer matters; it is enough to persuade them that the greatest threat comes from their neighbours within the country. Once the daily questions become who raises which flag, who belongs to which ethnicity, and who is entitled to administer a particular region, questions concerning the authorities’ responsibility for the economy and public services, the future of Syrian sovereignty, developments along the borders, and the nature of the agreements reshaping the country’s political and security landscape recede into the background.

It is precisely in this context that southern Syria must be examined, where Israel continues its military activities and incursions, seeks to impose new security realities, and engages in contacts and negotiations concerning arrangements with Syria’s new authorities. Developments in the south are neither marginal nor separable from the future of the Syrian state. The Mount Hermon area, Quneitra, and Daraa form part of Syrian geography, and any change in their security or military status affects national sovereignty and the country’s future.

Israel is not operating in southern Syria in a vacuum. It benefits from state weakness, internal divisions, the absence of a unified Syrian national position, and the instability left by years of war and the fall of the previous regime. With every military operation, incursion, or attempt to impose a new security reality, the question of Syrian sovereignty becomes more urgent. There is also an increasing need to scrutinise the authorities’ conduct: what is being negotiated, what arrangements are being proposed, and what limits may be placed on Syria’s ability to exercise sovereignty over its own territory.

Within this framework, claims that southern Syria is being sold to Israel—from Mount Hermon through Quneitra to Daraa—reflect concerns about the apparent direction of the ongoing understandings and the possibility that security arrangements may become a cover for entrenching a new Israeli reality on Syrian territory. As Israeli activities on the ground continue while security understandings between Damascus and Tel Aviv are being discussed, the question of their actual consequences becomes one of sovereignty that cannot be ignored: will these arrangements lead to the restoration of Syrian control over territories affected by incursions, or will they institutionalise long-term restrictions on the Syrian state’s ability to exercise sovereignty in the south?

The issue is not limited to whether an official document explicitly provides for the surrender of territory. A distinction must be drawn between an explicit legal cession and the imposition of facts on the ground that may gradually become a fait accompli. Syrian control could be progressively weakened, while measures initially described as temporary could become lasting arrangements if national scrutiny is absent and the capacity to adopt a unified position diminishes. For this reason, any security understanding affecting Syrian territory or restricting the exercise of sovereignty over it must be subject to clear national debate, and its content, limits, and consequences must be disclosed to the public.

This is why the timing of escalating tensions in Hasakah alongside continuing developments in the south carries considerable political significance. While attention is directed towards internal conflict between Kurds and Arabs, Israel continues its activities in southern Syria, negotiations over security arrangements proceed, and the future of Syrian sovereignty remains in question. According to this interpretation, distracting Syrian society with ethnic conflict serves a dangerous political function: it reduces attention to developments in the south and weakens the ability to formulate a unified national position in response.

When Syrians become absorbed in internal disputes, their capacity to monitor developments along their borders declines, the possibility of holding the authorities accountable for their foreign-policy choices weakens, and the risk increases that new realities will be treated as irreversible impositions. This is the danger of internal discord: it does not merely destroy trust between communities; it also undermines their collective ability to defend national sovereignty.

Within this equation, three files intersect: Hasakah, the Turkish process involving the PKK, and southern Syria. In Hasakah, the struggle concerns the identity of the state and the limits of Kurdish rights. In the Turkish process, the contours of relations between Ankara and the PKK and the future of the armed conflict are being determined. In the south, new security realities are taking shape as a result of Israeli activities and the proposed understandings. Read together, these files reveal how internal security intersects with regional calculations and how the Syrian crisis can become an arena in which interests are rearranged at the expense of Syrians.

In this analysis, intelligence manoeuvring is not confined to mobilising groups in the streets or promoting particular slogans. It also involves creating a political environment in which every side becomes preoccupied with its immediate fears, while the broader question of the country’s future recedes. Kurds fear for their identity and rights; Arabs are encouraged to worry about their position and interests; and other communities fear becoming victims of power balances over which they have little influence. Meanwhile, regional actors benefit from a divided society with a diminished capacity to formulate an independent national position.

This does not mean that every Arab participating in a gathering is acting under Turkish direction, or that every dispute in Hasakah is managed from a single intelligence operations room. The essence of such manoeuvring may also lie in exploiting existing contradictions, steering them towards broader objectives, and using mutual fears to undermine the prospects for understanding among communities. Yet the political outcome of this process is clear: a more divided society, local forces increasingly consumed by internal conflicts, an authority better positioned to impose realities on the ground, and external actors with greater capacity to influence the country’s future.

Herein lies the central paradox: those who proclaim Syrian unity while contributing to the exclusion of the Kurds or inciting hostility against them undermine the very social foundations on which that unity depends. Unity is not merely a political slogan, nor can it be reduced to raising a single flag or subjecting every region to a single centre of power. It is a compact among equal citizens who recognise one another’s rights and accept the state as a shared framework rather than an instrument for imposing one ethnic identity on other communities.

If unity becomes synonymous with denial and exclusion, it turns into a source of conflict rather than a solution. When Kurds feel that their rights are under threat, Arabs are pushed into confrontation with their neighbours, and other communities find their futures excluded from the authorities’ calculations, the state may retain its formal unity while divisions within society deepen.

For this reason, what is unfolding in Hasakah is not merely a local security crisis; it is a dangerous turning point in the struggle over the shape of the new Syria. Integration could provide an entry point for building a state that recognises pluralism and guarantees rights. It could, however, also be used to reproduce centralisation and exclusion under the banners of sovereignty and counterterrorism. Between these two paths lies the question of whether Syrians will build a state they share or allow themselves to remain trapped in an internal conflict that benefits forces seeking to impose their interests on the country.

At the same time, continued Israeli activity in the south, alongside negotiations and security understandings, makes it essential to view the Syrian crisis as a struggle over territory and sovereignty, not merely a struggle for power within cities. When Syrian regions face external military pressure, security arrangements along the borders are reconfigured, and ethnic polarisation intensifies at home, the risks increase that both state and society will be weakened and that conditions will be created for entrenching new realities that may prove difficult to reverse.

The most dangerous possibility at this stage is for Syrians to suffer two simultaneous losses: the erosion of mutual trust within society and a declining ability to influence the fate of their territory and borders. While people become absorbed in disputes over identity, symbols, and affiliations, political and security projects capable of reshaping the country may advance beyond public scrutiny and without any genuine national consensus.

For this reason, the events in Hasakah cannot be separated from the larger question confronting Syria: Who will decide its future? Will it be the Syrian people, through a political compact that guarantees equality, pluralism, and sovereignty? Or will the contours of the future be determined by the convergence of interests between the new authorities and Ankara, Israeli pressure in the south, and internal conflicts that exhaust society and divert attention from its most consequential concerns?

Syria’s future does not depend solely on unifying military and administrative institutions; it also depends on the political project governing those institutions. If the new state is founded on recognition of the rights of all its constituent communities, pluralism can become a foundation for stability. If, however, it is built on subordination and the reproduction of exclusion, it will open the door to a new crisis, even if it succeeds in imposing territorial control for a period of time.

Ultimately, Hasakah is one of the arenas in which the Syrian state crisis intersects with the regional struggle over the Kurdish question, the future of relations between Turkey and the PKK, and Israeli activities in southern Syria. Treating these files as separate crises obscures the broader picture. Examining them together, by contrast, reveals how developments within Syria are inseparable from regional power dynamics seeking to influence the country’s future.

The gravest threat Syria may face is not merely external pressure on its territory, but the division of its peoples from within, leaving Syrians preoccupied with confronting one another while realities along their borders change and political and security arrangements that will shape their future are renegotiated. When Kurds become adversaries of Arabs, Arabs become adversaries of Kurds, and ethnic identity becomes a battleground for accusations and exclusion, the loser is not one community alone, but Syria as a whole.

Syrian unity must never serve as a cover for denying rights, just as demands for rights must never be transformed into conflict between communities. These events underscore the need to understand which interests benefit from division, how internal crises can be instrumentalised in broader regional conflicts, and how these dynamics unfold alongside Israeli activities and security understandings in southern Syria. Hasakah must not become an arena that exhausts society and distracts it from issues affecting its sovereignty and future.

When Syrians become preoccupied with who raises the flag in Hasakah while realities on the ground in the south of the country are changing, and when the Kurdish question becomes an instrument of pressure in the Turkish conflict, the crisis is no longer merely an internal dispute. It becomes a struggle over who has the right to shape Syria’s future, who will bear the cost of that future, and who stands to benefit from Syrian divisions and their inability to defend their shared interests.

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