A US-backed alliance led by the Kurds was Friday holding talks in Damascus for the first time on the future of the swathe of territory under its control.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says the Kurdish regions represent 30 percent of Syria's territory. Major oil fields are located there.

- Decades of discrimination -

Concentrated in the north, Kurds make up around 15 percent of Syria's population.

Most are Sunni Muslims, but there are some non-Muslim minorities and many Kurds consider themselves secular.

They have suffered decades of marginalisation and oppression by the ruling Baath party and have long pushed for their cultural and political rights.

- Neutrality, then autonomy -

When Syria's conflict erupted in 2011, the Kurdish population generally sought to adopt a position of neutrality.

President Bashar al-Assad made conciliatory gestures towards the Kurds from the earliest days of the conflict, granting citizenship to 300,000 people -- a key demand for half a century.

The Kurds had been stripped of their nationality following a controversial census in 1962.

In 2012, government forces withdrew from Kurdish-majority areas in the north and east, paving the way for Kurds to consolidate control on the ground.

They have since established self-rule in many of these zones and have sought to prevent rebels and regime forces from entering them.

- 'Federal region' -

In 2013, the Democratic Union Party (PYD) -- the political branch of the powerful People's Protection Units (YPG) -- announced the establishment of a semi-autonomous region.

And in 2016, Kurdish authorities unveiled a "federal region" for this territory.

It would have three cantons: Afrin in Aleppo province, Jazira (Hasakeh province) and Euphrates (which includes parts of Aleppo and Raqa provinces).

The initiative looked like de facto autonomy, provoking hostility from Syria's mainstream opposition forces and neighbouring Turkey.

At the end of 2016, the Kurds gave themselves a "social contract" -- a Constitution for the "federal region".

And in 2017, inhabitants of the regions voted in "communal" elections to elect town councillors.

- Anti-jihadists -

Kurdish fighters have been one of the most effective forces fighting the Islamic State group in Syria, with air support from a US-led coalition.

At the start of 2015, Kurdish forces supported by coalition strikes ousted IS from Kobane on the Turkish border after more than four months of fighting.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of 25,000 Kurdish fighters and 5,000 Arabs -- all Syrian -- was created in October 2015.

Dominated by the Kurdish YPG, the alliance receives aid from the US, in the form of arms but also air support for their operations.

In October 2017, they overran IS' de facto Syrian capital, Raqa, after months of fighting. They continue to fight the jihadists in Deir Ezzor province.

- Turkish ire -

In January 2018, the US-led coalition announced it was working to create a 30,000-strong border security force comprised of Kurdish and Arab personnel in northern Syria, around half of whom would be retrained SDF fighters.

But Ankara accuses the YPG of being the Syrian offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) which has waged a three-decade rebellion in Turkey's southeast.

On January 20, 2018, Turkey launched an air and ground operation against the YPG-held enclave of Afrin, taking control of it on March 18.

Turkey had already launched an offensive in northern Syria in August 2016, targeting both IS and the Kurdish militia.

In mid-July 2018, the last Kurdish forces left Manbij, allied Arab fighters said, under a deal reached to avoid clashes with Turkey.