Syria Kurds reject any 'division' threatening national unity

QAMISHLI, Syria: US-backed Kurdish forces who control an autonomous region in northeastern Syria said Wednesday they had told the new Damascus authorities they did not want to break away from the rest of the country.

“We agree that we are for the unity and integrity of Syrian territory and reject any division projects that threaten the country’s unity,” the commander of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Mazloum Abdi, said in a written statement to AFP.

He spoke following a meeting he described as “positive” between Kurdish leaders and the Damascus authorities late last month, and after weeks of deadly clashes between the SDF and Turkish-backed groups in northern Syria.

“We support the efforts of the new administration for there to be stability in Syria to pave the way towards building constructive dialogue between Syrians,” he said.

“Thus, it is the responsibility of the new administration to intervene in order for there to be a ceasefire throughout Syria,” he said.

Turkish pressure

Syria’s Kurds control much of the oil-rich northeast of the country, where they have enjoyed de facto autonomy during much of the civil war since 2011.

The US-backed SDF spearheaded the military campaign that ousted Islamic State group from their last territory in Syria in 2019.

But Turkey accuses the main component of the SDF, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), of being affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has waged a four-decade insurgency against the Turkish state.

Turkey has mounted multiple operations against the SDF since 2016.

Turkish-backed factions in northern Syria resumed their fight with the SDF around the same time as Islamist-led rebels moved out of their northern bastion in a flash offensive to seize Damascus in early December.

Turkey has long had ties with the rebels who overthrew Syrian president Bashar al-Assad — the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham led by Ahmed al-Sharaa.

An official in Damascus told AFP last month that Sharaa has held talks with SDF delegates in the Syrian capital on December 30, describing them as “positive”.

A day earlier, Sharaa had told Al Arabiya TV that the Kurdish-led forces should be integrated into the new national army.

He said weapons “must be in the hands of the state alone”, calling on those “armed and qualified to join the defence ministry”.

He spoke of “dialogue with the SDF… to perhaps find an appropriate solution.”

The Kurdish authorities said that Turkish shelling killed five civilians Wednesday as they were on their way to the Tishreen Dam on the Euphrates River in an SDF-held part of Aleppo province to protest against it being repeatedly targeted.

More than 100 combatants were killed in two days in fighting between Turkish-backed groups and the SDF last week, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said.