As we wait for news on the dissolution of the PKK, this week’s article begins with the politics surrounding the expected announcement. It goes on to examine Wednesday’s meeting between France’s President Macron and Syria’s Interim President, Ahmed al-Sharaa. It looks at debates over that meeting, and at the relative weakness and short-term pragmatism of al-Sharaa, as exemplified by some worrying recent appointments.

Quiet diplomacy has brought Syria some provisional agreements that demonstrate the possibility of retaining regional autonomy, despite Turkey’s looming presence. Meanwhile in Turkey, hopes for peace are currently focussed on an Istanbul hospital where one of the main negotiators was rushed for major heart surgery.

In Turkey, hopes for peace talks have been revived by the DEM Party’s visit to Erdoğan, the first such visit in thirteen years, but democracy continues to be under assault. In Syria, negotiations have yielded some positive results for North and East Syria, but Trump’s admiration for Erdoğan introduces new dangers

This week brought news of an interim agreement that could prove a positive step towards greater security for Syria’s Kurds and their neighbours. The agreement is between the Civil Council of the Kurdish majority neighbourhoods of Aleppo and the caretaker government in Damascus, and it has come at a time when Syria has become a battleground for competition between Turkey and Israel.

Turkey has opened up a path to peace, but chosen to follow a very different route. The government is refusing to make the changes needed for the PKK to enact Öcalan’s call to dissolve. This destructive intransigence is being compounded by continued military violence in Syria, and now by an existential assault on the remnants of Turkish Democracy through the detention of Erdoğan’s main political rival. Peace and Democracy are intertwined, and both are being asphyxiated.

A historic week for Syria began with the horrors of the mass killings of Alawites, and ended with fears of a new Islamist dictatorship. In between, hopes were raised by an initial agreement between the Interim Government and the Syrian Democratic Forces, which has the potential to allow the emergence of a peaceful state for all Syrians, if only it is given a chance.

As Kurds mark the 26th anniversary of Öcalan’s abduction and imprisonment, anticipation competes with foreboding. Will Turkey allow the recent meetings with Öcalan to develop into a peace process, or will they shut the door again and simply continue their unremitting attacks on Kurds and Kurdish freedoms? Meanwhile, the mayor of Van has been sentenced to prison, Turkish pressure is sabotaging hopes of an agreement between the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria and the new interim government in Damascus, and international bodies are again failing to rise to the occasion.

This week’s review looks at the emergence of what is effectively a new dictatorship in Syria, and at new roles for Turkey’s Syrian National Army and the Autonomous Administration’s Syrian Democratic forces. It also examines interventions by Turkey, and the week’s developments in Turkey itself.

As Turkey stands at a crossroads between peace and war, this week’s World Economic Forum has demonstrated the still hegemonic power of Western capital and its rulebook. HTS is accepted because they play the capitalists’ game. The Kurdish Freedom Movement may eventually manage to negotiate cultural tolerance, but changes in social structure and philosophy require an even bigger struggle.

Today’s review looks at the prospects for war and peace in a time of genocide. It begins by looking at the impacts of Israel’s genocide on the wider practice of international politics.  It looks at Turkey’s continued war on North and East Syria and their attacks on the Tishreen Dam and on the civilians protesting to protect it. It discusses the meeting between the SDF's Mazloum Abdi, and Masoud Barzani, head of the KDP, in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. And it examines the possible peace process in Turkey.