In an age shaped by the internet, social media and artificial intelligence, information is gradually drifting away from the substance of knowledge itself. Crowds fiercely debate interpretations of interpretations, often blurring the very reality they are trying to grasp. The impulse to draw grand conclusions from the smallest details makes it harder to see the fundamental dynamics of geopolitical processes. What is needed today is the humility to accept that anyone can be wrong, and the discipline to distinguish noise from truth. Without this, we become vulnerable to illusions, individually and collectively. At a time when everything concerning the Kurds and Kurdistan is so fluid, interconnected and subject to multiple layers of influence, clinging to definitive judgments is far less useful than observing the unfolding process with careful attention.
The last decade in the Middle East has been defined by major powers trying to reconstruct their own realities through conflicts, alliances and diplomatic manoeuvres. One of the most consequential turning points of this period was the series of agreements known as the Abraham Accords, signed in 2020 and later expanded and reshaped through various mechanisms. These agreements were not merely a normalization between Israel and a group of Arab monarchies; they marked the beginning of a narrative that reconfigured the region’s power architecture. This new narrative shifted the Palestinian question away from the centre of the regional equation and replaced it with the concepts of “shared threat” and “shared interest.” Iran, political Islam, energy routes and overlapping security projections became the pillars of an emerging security language that has since guided regional alignments.
The second major link in this emerging paradigm is now taking shape in Syria. The reception of Ahmed Al-Sharaa (al-Jolani) at the White House, the suspension of sanctions and the incorporation of al-Jolani’s Syria into the anti-ISIS coalition all signal that the redesign of the regional order is accelerating. Only a few years ago, al-Jolani was treated as a political non-entity in the international system; his appearance today as a guest in Washington is not merely a diplomatic courtesy but the Syrian version of the Abraham Accords. The map is being redrawn once again, and new norms are crystallising.
Within this new architecture, the line on which the Kurds are positioned carries both strategic weight and deep vulnerability. The democratic, secular and pluralistic project developed in Rojava since 2012 has been one of the Middle East’s rare examples of genuine societal innovation. The strong political space carved out by women, the network of local councils, the bottom-up defence model and the balance maintained among ethnic communities together embodied a tangible alternative future for the region, and the most significant achievement for all of Kurdistan in the last century. Yet it is precisely for these reasons that Rojava posed a governability problem for major powers. It was an actor capable of producing value, but not one that could be easily steered. And hegemonic powers tend to prize not value, but controllability.
The ongoing negotiations in northeastern Syria are being shaped by this tension. The United States’ reaffirmation that the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) will remain in control of their territory may appear encouraging, but it does not constitute a comprehensive guarantee.
Washington’s decision to bring Al-Jolani and his administration into the international system is not an effort to strengthen Rojava’s status, but rather an attempt to redefine “where Rojava fits within the larger picture.” The question of the Kurds’ place in the region is no longer determined solely by the military balance on the ground; it is now tied to how the new regional architecture shaped by the Abraham Accords is being constructed.
The Turkish state has positioned itself as the most aggressive variable in this process. Ankara’s framing of Rojava not as a security issue but as an existential threat colours every diplomatic front. Turkey’s efforts to expand its influence inside Syria through Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), to pressure Damascus during every attempted round of talks, and to push demands targeting the status of the SDF in its negotiations with the United States are all components of this strategy. Turkey is deploying every geopolitical instrument at its disposal to prevent Rojava from gaining any form of international recognition. As a result, the Kurdish struggle for political status is no longer a matter confined to Syria’s internal dynamics; it has been placed squarely at the centre of regional rivalries.
The tension between the United States and Turkey is therefore not merely tactical but strategic. During Donald Trump’s meetings with Erdoğan, the proposal to “integrate the SDF into the Syrian army” was placed on the table, a move aimed at rolling back Rojava’s military and political autonomy. What Ankara has long sought is the weakening of Kurdish autonomous capacity and its absorption into a centralised security structure shaped jointly by Turkey and al-Jolani’s administration. This represents Turkey’s attempt to graft its own reading onto the new regional security formula introduced by the Abraham Accords.
At this stage, the discourse emerging from Turkey’s ruling circles reveals another dimension of the process. Ideologues aligned with the Justice and Development Party (AKP) portray conflicts stretching from Sudan to Libya, from Gaza to the Red Sea, as components of a “Turkey-centric global power struggle.” This narrative points to the mental framework Ankara is trying to construct in its foreign policy: one that interprets every regional crisis through Turkey’s self-assigned historical mission and that even frames the Abraham Accords as an anti-Turkey bloc. Yet this discourse does more to obscure Turkey’s regional isolation and fragility than to explain geopolitical reality. Presenting every conflict in the region as “a war against Turkey” serves not diplomatic clarity but ideological consolidation at home. The mindset nourished by expansionist imperial nostalgia, mirroring similar examples elsewhere in the world, operates on a familiar premise: “Empires do not have fixed borders; they only have frontlines in a permanent state of war.”
The reception of Al-Jolani at the White House marks a critical turning point. With this visit, Washington is beginning to reshape the future of Syria not only through the lens of counterterrorism, but as part of a broader regional reordering. At the centre of this emerging design lies an expanded version of the Abraham Accords: the consolidation of the Israel–Gulf axis, Syria’s gradual reintegration, a recalibrated pressure campaign on Iran and a more narrowly defined role for Turkey. Within this new architecture, the future of the Kurds remains deeply uncertain.
Rojava, with its internal coherence, its social legitimacy and its organised structure, continues to demonstrate resilience and an ability to withstand attempts to break its will. Yet as geopolitical pressure intensifies, so does its vulnerability. U.S. support is inconsistent, Turkey’s pressure is relentless, al-Jolani’s stance remains unclear and the regional equation is shifting rapidly. This places a dual burden on the Kurds: a historical responsibility and a heavy weight, to preserve their democratic experiment while avoiding being crushed between competing regional powers.
The picture emerging today shows that the Abraham Accords were not merely an Israel–Arab normalization initiative, but the foundation of a far larger paradigm reshaping the political map of the Middle East. In this new landscape, the Kurds are not only an actor, they are also a crucial testing ground for the stability of the emerging order.
And perhaps the most fundamental question arises here: Amid competing regional interests, hegemonic projects and fragile alliances, will the Kurds be able to preserve their own political agency and will that capacity become one of the defining parameters of this new era? Or will they once again be squeezed into the “buffer zone” of great-power rivalry?
The answer lies in the steps being taken today, and in the fragments of truth we can discern through the noise.