At first glance, Syrian Kurds have benefited from their country’s ongoing crisis. In just one year, they have gained international recognition, accessed organizational support and asserted some territorial control. The revolutionary climate also has helped advance Syrian Kurdish claims to their group rights, which focus on autonomy in a federal Syria state.

Yet, a deeper look at the shifting dynamics of the Syrian upheaval reveals a more uncertain scenario for the Kurds. The continuing crisis has reinforced power struggles between Kurdish factions, heightened the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) insurgency and encouraged growing political tensions inside Iraqi Kurdistan. These threats will further check regional support for Syrian Kurds — outside the PKK — making their future prospects dependent upon pacts with groups inside the Syrian state.

The Syrian Kurdish unrest is as much a contest over regional leadership as it is over Kurdish autonomy. Despite the so-called unity agreement between Syrian Kurdish groups, power struggles have become more pronounced between the two main factions and their leaders, who reside outside Syria’s borders: Iraqi Kurdish President Masoud Barzani and imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan. Although Barzani has been able to semi-legitimize the fractious group of 16 Syrian Kurdish parties into a Kurdish National Council (KNC) — largely comprised of his tribal affiliates from the Jazira and Syrian KDP cadres in the diaspora and Erbil — he has been unable to check the PKK and its Syrian branch, the Democratic Union Party (PYD).

In fact, the PKK/PYD has gained ground in certain regions. Alongside deep-rooted historical and cultural ties to local populations, the PKK/PYD has brought in large numbers of recruits from the Qandil Mountains and assumed control of border regions in northwest Syria with the tacit support of Assad and the Syrian army. When Barzani recently tried to send hundreds of Syrian Kurdish army defectors that he purportedly trained into Syria — wearing Kurdish Peshmerga uniforms — they were rebuffed by the PKK/PYD and sent back to the Kurdistan Region.