Syria: agreement with the Kurds to integrate their autonomous institutions into the State
The Syrian presidency announced on Monday an agreement with the head of the Syrian Democratic Forces (FDS), dominated by the Kurds, Mazloum Abdi. This agreement provides, by the end of the year, “The integration of all civil and military institutions in northeast Syria in the administration of the Syrian State, including border posts, airport and oil and gas fields”.
The agreement also claims that “The Kurdish community is an essential component of the Syrian State”Who “Guarantees its right to citizenship and all of its constitutional rights”while rejecting “Calls for division, hatred speeches and attempts to sow discord between the different components of Syrian society”. It also stipulates “Support for the Syrian State in its fight against the residues of the Assad regime and all the threats to its security and its unity”.
The Kurdish autonomous administration, supported by the United States, controls vast territories in the north and east of Syria, rich in wheat, oil and gas, crucial resources for the authorities of Damascus in this period of reconstruction. His armed wing, the FDS, played a key role in the fight against the Islamic State jihadist group, beaten in its last bastion in 2019.
Marginalized and repressed under the Al-Assad family regime, the Kurds were deprived, for decades, of the right to speak their language, to celebrate their parties and, for a large number of them, of Syrian nationality. During the civil war launched in 2011, they set up an autonomous administration in the northeast of the country, with their own educational, social and military institutions.
Since the arrival in December of the new authorities in Damascus, the Kurds have demonstrated a certain opening, seeing an opportunity to build a new Syria which guarantees the rights of all Syrians. However, they were excluded from a conference for national dialogue on the main lines of the transition.