Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Arab Belt project" in English language version.
The Kurds were suspected of being "in league" with the Kurds of Iraq, who had just launched the September 1961 insurrection aimed at securing autonomous status within an Iraqi framework.
Under the pretext of the illegal immigration from Turkey, on August 23, 1961, the government promulgated a decree (no. 93) authorizing a special population census in Jezireh Province. It claimed that Kurds from Turkey were "illegally infiltrating" the Jezireh in order to "destroy its Arab character". The census was carried out in November of that year; when its results were released, some 120,000 Jezireh Kurds were discounted as foreigners and denied Syrian citizenship.
Arab Belt plan
In 1962, to combat the "Kurdish threat" and "save Arabism" in the region, the government inaugurated the so-called "Arab Cordon plan" (Al Hizam al-arabi), which envisaged the entire Kurdish population living along the border with Turkey. They were to be gradually replaced by Arabs and would be resettled, and preferably dispersed, in the south. The discovery of oil at Qaratchok, right in the middle of Kurdish Jezireh, no doubt had something to do with the government's policy.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)