Syria’s Kurdish-controlled northern regions voted to seek autonomy, drawing rebukes from the Damascus government, neighbouring power Turkey and Washington over a move that could complicate UN-backed peace talks.
The vote to unite three Kurdish-controlled provinces in a federal system appears aimed at creating a self-run entity within Syria, a status that Kurds have enjoyed in neighbouring Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.
The proclamation is an open challenge to many of the sides in Syria’s five-year-old civil war, as well as their international sponsors, who have mainly been battling for control of what they say must remain a unified state.
The Kurds, who enjoy US military support, have beaten back Dae’sh fighters to control swathes of northern Syria, but the main Syrian Kurdish party, the PYD, has so far been excluded from peace talks that began this week in Geneva.
The three Kurdish-controlled regions agreed at a conference in Rmeilan in northeast Syria to establish the self-administered “federal democratic system of Rojava - Northern Syria”, officials announced. Rojava is the Kurdish name for north Syria.
Officials said at a news conference they intended to begin preparations for a federal system, including electing a joint leadership and a 31-member organising committee which would prepare a “legal and political vision” for the system within six months.
Kurdish control
Syrian Kurds effectively control an uninterrupted stretch of 400km along the Syrian-Turkish border from the Euphrates river to the frontier with Iraq. They also hold a separate section of the northwestern border in the Afrin area.
The areas are separated by roughly 100km of territory, much of it still held by Dae’sh.
A US-backed force which includes Kurdish YPG fighters has been battling Dae’sh and other militants, making some gains in Raqqa, Hasaka and Aleppo provinces. Kurdish official Idris Nassan said those “liberated” areas were included in Thursday’s agreement.
On Saturday, Syria’s government in Damascus ruled out the idea of a federal system for the country, just days after a Russian official said that could be a possible model. Russia’s five-month military intervention in Syria helped turn the tide of Syria’s war back in Assad’s favour.
