- Join protests -

On April 1, 2011, Kurds for the first time join the pro-reform and anti-government protests that had erupted in mid-March, calling for "freedom" and the right to citizenship.

Twenty percent of Syria's Kurds -- who make up about 15 percent of the population -- had lost their citizenship in 1962 following a controversial census.

On April 7, 2011, President Bashar al-Assad issues "a decree granting Syrian Arab citizenship to people registered as foreigners" in Hasakeh province, SANA state news agency reports. It covers about 300,000 Kurds.

The next day there are protests in Kurdish areas of northern Syria demanding the abolition of the emergency law and the release of prisoners.

In October, the prominent Kurdish opposition figure Meshaal Tamo is killed by masked gunmen in the northeastern city of Qamishli.

His funeral turns into a mass rally with demonstrators calling for the fall of Assad's regime. Security forces open fire on the crowd.

- Army retreat -

In June 2012, the Free Syrian Army rebel group calls on the Kurds to join the uprising. But the majority of Kurds, wary of the opposition, prefer to try to protect their regions from the violence.

In July, the Syrian army retreats from some Kurdish regions, provoking opposition suspicion of collusion with the regime.

Ankara accuses Damascus of handing over areas to Kurdish groups including the People's Protection Units (YPG), which it views as an extension of its own banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a group that has waged a separatist insurgency for decades.

Turkey sees the PKK and Syrian Kurdish fighters as "terrorists".

- US ally -

In 2014, Washington reveals that US officials had met Kurds from the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the YPG's political arm, as part of its strategy against the Islamic State group, which has captured large swathes in the north and east of Syria.

Early 2015, Kurdish forces supported by US-led coalition strikes oust IS from Kobane on the Turkish border.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an Kurdish-led alliance, is created in October 2015. Dominated by the Kurdish YPG, it receives arms and air support from the US.

The SDF later overruns IS from its stronghold in the city of Raqa and then drives out the jihadists from their last patch of territory in the village of Baghouz in March 2019.

- 'Federal region' -

In 2016, the creation of a "federal region" is announced, which contains three cantons: Afrin in Aleppo province, Jazira in Hasakeh province, and Euphrates, which includes parts of Aleppo and Raqa provinces.

The initiative looks like de facto autonomy and provokes hostility from Syria's mainstream opposition forces and neighbouring Turkey.

In December 2017, Assad calls the US-backed Kurdish fighters "traitors".

In late May 2018, Assad does not rule out using force against the Kurdish forces to retake the regions under their control.

- US retreat, Turkish offensive -

On October 6, 2019, the White House announces that US "special operators" will be moved back from the Syrian border, clearing the way for the Turkish offensive, which begins three days later.

Shortly before the assault starts, the Kurds call on Russia, an Assad ally, to facilitate "dialogue" with the regime and play a role of "a backer and guarantor".