Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria in the context of "Busayrah"

The Republic of Turkey had an official policy in place that denies the existence of the Kurds as a distinct ethnicity. The Kurds, who are a people that speak various dialects of Northwestern Iranic languages, have historically constituted the demographic majority in southeastern Turkey (or "Turkish Kurdistan") and their independent national aspirations have stood at the forefront of the long-running Kurdish–Turkish conflict. Insisting that the Kurds, like the Turks, are a Turkic people, Turkish state institutions do not recognize the Kurdish language as a language and also omit the Kurdish ethnonym and the term "Kurdistan" in their discourse. In the 20th century, as the words "Kurd" and "Kurdish" were prohibited by Turkish law, all Kurds were referred to as Mountain Turks (Turkish: Dağ Türkleri) in a wider attempt to portray them as a people who lost their Turkic identity over time by intermingling with Arabs, Armenians, and Persians, among others. More recently, Turkey's opposition to Kurdish independence has defined how it has conducted itself throughout the Middle East, particularly with regard to the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

Syria's estimated pre–Syrian Civil War 2011 population was 22 ±.5 million permanent inhabitants, which included 21,124,000 Syrians, as well as 1.3 million Iraqi refugees and over 500,000 Palestinian refugees. The war makes an accurate count of the Syrian population difficult, as the numbers of Syrian refugees, internally displaced Syrians and casualty numbers are in flux. The CIA World Factbook showed an estimated 20.4 m people as of July 2021. Of the pre-war population, six million are refugees outside the country, seven million are internally displaced and two million live in the Kurdish-ruled Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria.

Most modern-day Syrians are commonly described as Arabs by virtue of their modern-day language and bonds to Arab culture and history. But they are, in fact, genetically a blend of the various Semitic-speaking groups indigenous to the region. With around 10% of the population, Kurds are the second biggest ethnic group in Syria, followed by Turkmen.

Syrian Kurdistan or Rojava (Kurdish: Rojavayê Kurdistanê, lit. 'Kurdistan where the sun sets') is a region in northern Syria where Kurds form the majority. It geographically surrounds three noncontiguous enclaves along the Turkish and Iraqi borders: Afrin in the northwest, Kobani in the north, and Jazira in the northeast. The term started to become more widely known as Kurdish nationalist groups and parties started to use it in 2013 to describe the political entity later known as "Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria". However, this usage was officially dropped in 2016 in favor of a more inclusive name to the heterogenous area under PYD control.

Kurdish nationalists consider Syrian Kurdistan as one of the four Lesser Kurdistans that comprise Greater Kurdistan, alongside Iranian Kurdistan, Turkish Kurdistan, and Iraqi Kurdistan. A significant part of the Kurdish community of Afrin was displaced during the Turkish-backed Operation Olive Branch in 2018.

Manbij (Arabic: منبج, romanized: Manbiǧ) is a city in the northeast of Aleppo Governorate in northern Syria, 30 kilometers (19 miles) west of the Euphrates. The 2004 census gives its population as nearly 100,000. The population of Manbij is largely Arab, with Kurdish, Turkmen, Circassian, and Chechen minorities. Many of its residents practice Naqshbandi Sufism.

During the Syrian Civil War, the city was first captured by rebels in 2012, overrun by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in 2014 and finally captured by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in 2016, bringing it into the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES). From 2018 to 2024, after an agreement with the SDF, the Syrian Arab Army had been deployed on the city's periphery as a buffer between the Turkish occupation of Northern Syria and the AANES. On December 9, 2024, it was reported that the city came under the control of the Syrian Interim Government after a deal was reached between the U.S. and Turkey to allow the safe exit of SDF fighters. The pro-Turkish forces' control over the area did not end until the SIG was incorporated into the Syrian caretaker government at the end of January 2025.

Euphrates Region, formerly the Kobanî Canton, (Kurdish: Herêma Firatê; Arabic: إقليم الفرات; Classical Syriac: ܦܢܝܬܐ ܕܦܪܬ, romanized: Ponyotho d'Prat) is an administrative region of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, comprising Ayn al-Arab District of the Aleppo Governorate alongside northern areas of Raqqa Governorate.

The region has two subordinate cantons, the Kobani Canton consisting of the Sarrin area (with the al-Jalabiya district subordinate to it) and the Kobani area (with the Şêran and the Qenaya Subdistricts subordinate to it), as well as the Tel Abyad Canton (with the Ain Issa and Suluk Subdistricts subordinate to it).

Jazira Region, formerly the Jazira Canton (Kurdish: Herêma Cizîrê; Arabic: إقليم الجزيرة; Syriac: ܦܢܝܬܐ ܕܓܙܪܬܐ, romanized: Ponyotho d'Gozarto), is the largest of the three original regions of the de facto Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES). As part of the ongoing Rojava conflict, its democratic autonomy was officially declared on 21 January 2014. The region is in the Al-Hasakah Governorate (formerly known as the Al-Jazira Province) of Syria.

According to the DAANES constitution, the city of Qamishli is the administrative center of Jazira Region. However, as parts of Qamishli previously were under the control of Syrian government forces, meetings of the autonomous region's administration take place in the nearby city of Amuda.

The People's Defense Units (YPG), also called People's Protection Units, is a libertarian socialist US-backed Kurdish militant group in Syria and the primary component of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

The YPG mostly consists of Kurds, but also includes Arabs and foreign volunteers; it is closely allied to the Syriac Military Council, an Assyrian militia. The YPG was formed in 2011. It expanded rapidly in the Syrian Civil War and came to predominate over other armed Syrian Kurdish groups. A sister militia, the Women's Protection Units (YPJ), fights alongside them. The YPG is active in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (Rojava), particularly in its Kurdish regions.