Syria's Sharaa rejects Kurdish demands for decentralisation

By Suleiman Al-Khalidi

Syria's Islamist leaders said on Sunday that Kurdish demands for the country to adopt a decentralised system of government in a post-Assad political order posed a threat to national unity.

"We clearly reject any attempt to impose a partition or create separatist cantons under the terms of federalism or self-autonomy without a national consensus," Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa's office said in a statement.

"The unity of Syrian territory and its people is a red line," the statement said.

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Rival Syrian Kurdish parties, including the dominant faction in the Kurdish-run northeast, agreed at a meeting in Syria's Kurdish-controlled city of Qamishli on Saturday on a common political vision for Syria's Kurdish minority.

A communique at the end of the conference, which was attended by U.S. officials, demanded that a future Syrian constitution should enshrine respect for Kurdish national rights in Syria after the ouster of Bashar al-Assad.

"A joint Kurdish political vision has been formulated that expresses a collective will and its project for a just solution to the Kurdish issue in Syria as a decentralized democratic state," the pan-Kurdish statement said.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), backed by the U.S., last month signed a deal with Damascus on merging Kurdish-led governing bodies and security forces with the central government

The Syrian presidency's statement also said recent statements by SDF leaders advocating a federal solution went clearly against that deal.

During the 14-year civil war, Kurdish-led groups took control of roughly a quarter of Syrian territory, where most of the country's oil wealth is found along with fertile arable land that produces a major proportion of the country's wheat.

Kurdish officials have objected to the way Syria's governing Islamists are shaping the transition from Assad's rule, saying they are failing to respect Syria's diversity despite promises of inclusivity.