The Muted State: Turkish Foreign Policy and The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria

Despite the achievements of the AANES, the political project that created a self-governing administration and the constitution in which it was proclaimed are not ratified or recognised by any national government. This status quo, therefore, is a pivotal point in themes of sovereignty and state formation under the current international order. The purpose of this inquiry is to provide an explanation for the situation as of 2022 and to place it into context focusing on its implications on the above-listed topics, by elaborating on the practices of state recognition in relation to AANES. The analysis consists of a review of relevant international law, a case study of the AANES, and a conflict mapping of Northern East Syria with attention to the Syrian Civil War. The findings of the first chapter present the eligibility for recognition based on international standards codified by the Montevideo Convention. The geopolitical inquiry in Chapter II in turn demonstrates Turkish political interests in the negligence of international customary law, which makes the case for the final conclusion of the paper: International rules of conduct regarding state recognition are proven to be 1) highly interpretative, 2) non-binding, 3) and easily instrumentalized to achieve political means. These findings aim to shed new light on contemporary discourses of sovereign equality.