The Democratic Union Party (Kurdish: Partiya Yekîtiya Demokrat, pronounced [paːrtɨjaː jɛkiːtɨja dɛmokraːt], PYD; Arabic: حزب الاتحاد الديمقراطي, romanized: Ḥizb al-Ittiḥad al-Dimuqraṭiy; Classical Syriac: ܓܒܐ ܕܚܘܝܕܐ ܕܝܡܩܪܐܛܝܐ, romanized: Gabo d'Ḥuyodo Demoqraṭoyo) is a Kurdish left-wing political party established on 20 September 2003 in northern Syria.

[7][10][11] The PYD has adopted democratic confederalism as its main ideology and have implemented the ideas of Murray Bookchin and Abdullah Öcalan in the AANES, where hundreds of neighborhood-based communes have established across northeastern Syria.

[13] In order to exert pressure on regional rivals, former Syrian President Hafez al-Assad supported Kurdish factions in neighboring Iraqi and Turkish Kurdistan.

In 1975, Assad offered the Iraqi Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani a safe haven in Damascus to form his new Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) Party.

In 1998, the Syrian government banned Kurdish political parties and organizations, including the PUK and PKK, withdrawing its support and forcing them to leave Syria.

[5] Though Syrian security forces had already for several years been targeting members of Kurdish political parties and organizations, the PYD came under intensified persecution in the aftermath of the 2004 Qamishli riots.

According to Human Rights Watch, the Syrian government saw the party as a particular threat due to its "ability to mobilise large crowds", and suspected it of organising numerous demonstrations.

[15] On 2 November 2007, PYD activists organised large demonstrations in Qamishli and Kobanê, drawing hundreds of Kurds to protest Turkish threats to invade Iraqi Kurdistan, and Syria's support of Turkey.

[15] From 2006 to 14 April 2009, at least two dozen PYD activists were formally tried before a special security court, some receiving sentences from five to seven years on charges of membership in a "secret organisation" and seeking "to cut off part of Syrian land to join it to another country".

While similar methods were employed against many Kurdish prisoners and activists in Syria, Human Rights Watch noted that the security forces tended to reserve their harshest treatments for PYD members.

[15] With the outbreak of anti-government demonstrations across Syria in early 2011, the PYD joined the Kurdish Patriotic Movement in May, was a founding member of the National Coordination Body for Democratic Change in July, and of the KCK-aligned People's Council of Western Kurdistan in December.

[22] Leftist media commented that "Kurdish rebels are establishing self-rule in war-torn Syria, resembling the Zapatista experience and providing a democratic alternative for the region.

As a September 2015 report in The New York Times observed:[8] For a former diplomat like me, I found it confusing: I kept looking for a hierarchy, the singular leader, or signs of a government line, when, in fact, there was none; there were just groups.

[26] For the first time in Syrian history, civil marriage is being allowed and promoted, a significant move towards a secular open society and intermarriage between people of different religious backgrounds.

According to some officials, Turkey's demands included that the PYD not seek an autonomous region through violence, not harm Turkish border security, and be firmly opposed to the Syrian government.

[40][41] PYD was included in the declaration in the trilateral memorandum signed by Turkey, Finland and Sweden during the NATO summit in Madrid on 28 June 2022, but did not define it as a terrorist organization.

[32] What is more, on the 6 November 2018, U.S Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, Matthew Palmer, announced U.S bounties on three leaders of the PKK, Murat Karayilan, Cemil Bayik, and Duran Kalkan.

[45] The announcement of the bounties—a move strongly praised by the Turkish regime—represents a potential conflict in policy, with the U.S fighting alongside YPJ-YPG, while actively looking to capture members of the PKK.