Democratic Union Party
The PYD (Partiya Yekîtiya Demokrat) is the dominant Kurdish political party in Syria and the political wing of the Rojava self-administration in northeastern Syria. Ideologically rooted in Abdullah Öcalan's democratic confederalism — a form of libertarian municipalism combining feminism, ecology, and stateless democracy — the PYD established the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) during the civil war. Turkey regards the PYD as an extension of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) and designates it as a terrorist organisation. The party's armed wing, the YPG, formed the core of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces against Islamic State.
