But the party’s strategic decision to concentrate on defending Kurdish areas within Syria and establishing local self-administration must in retrospect be acknowledged as the best choice for the Kurdish population.
"Kurdish-inhabited areas", also sometimes Kurdish cantons. The Syrian Ba’athist regime targeted the Kurds as an unwanted minority for decades, and Kurdish-inhabited areas mainly in the north and north-eastern parts of the country along the Turkish and Iraqi borders were
^Özçelik, B. (2019). Explaining the Kurdish Democratic Union Party's Self-Governance Practices in Northern Syria, 2012–18. Government and Opposition, 1-21.
https://doi.org/10.1017/gov.2019.1