Dialogue between Syrian Kurds, government ‘stopped completely’: AANES official
The Syrian government has so far rejected Kurdish offers to return the country’s energy and grain producing areas in return for autonomy
By
News Desk
– April 23 2023
https://media.thecradle.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/ilhan-Ahmed-AANES-e1682244905309.jpg
Ilham Ahmed, the chair of the Executive Board the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES). (Photo Credit North Press Agency)
Dialogue between the Kurdish-dominated Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) and the Syrian government has recently stopped completely, according to the head of the Executive Council of the Syrian Democratic Council, Ilham Ahmed, Al-Souria reported on 21 April.
Ahmed stated further that all attempts initiated by the AANES to reach understanding with the Syrian government had “failed” due to the government’s torpedo of those attempts, as Ahmed described it.
The Syrian government refuses to grant autonomy to the Kurds in northeastern Syria and has repeatedly threatened a military operation to control the lands under the rule of the AANES, which now comprise some 27 percent of Syria’s territory.
Ilham Ahmed’s comments follow a proposal put forward by the AANES to resolve the largely stalemated Syrian conflict after the failure of international and regional diplomatic tracks in recent years.
The proposal, which was published on 18 April, said the AANES was ready to meet for talks with the Syrian government and with all Syrian parties “in order to consult and discuss to present initiatives and find a solution to the Syrian crisis.”
“We emphasize that the current wealth and economic resources must be distributed fairly among all Syrian regions, as the resources in northern and eastern Syria, such as (oil, gas, agricultural crops), like other resources in other areas in Syria, belong to all the Syrian people,” the text of the initiative said.
“We stress once again the need to share these resources through agreement with the Syrian government through dialogue and negotiation.”
These resources are largely under AANES control, whose Kurdish-dominated military forces, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), have partnered with the US army to illegally occupy large swathes of eastern Syria, including in the Deir Ezzor and Raqqa governates, whose populations are majority Arab.
The concession by the AANES to potentially return control of Syria’s energy and grain resources to the government so that all Syrians can fairly benefit from them comes at a time when the Syrian government’s position vis a vis the Kurdish autonomous administration has strengthened.
The administration’s de facto foreign minister, Badran Jia Kurd, said on 21 April that “the conflict in Ukraine along with Arab communication with Bashar al-Assad has changed calculus.”
Arab states, which previously participated in the 2011 US-led war against the Syrian government, have recently reversed course and sought to normalize relations with Syria.
During the war, many Arab states – Saudi Arabia and Qatar in particular – sought to use religious extremist mercenaries from the Free Syrian Army (FSA), Nusra Front, and later ISIS as proxies to achieve regime change in Damascus.
Syrian Kurdish officials also fear they may be losing US support. In this context, Amberin Zaman of Al-Monitor noted the failure of the Biden administration to publicly condemn Turkiye’s 7 April drone strike, which narrowly missed assassinating SDF commander Mazloum Abdi. The SDF chief’s convoy was traveling near the Sulaymaniyah airport in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region (IKR). The US failure to condemn the attack was especially notable as three US military personnel were traveling with Abdi in the convoy.
Keywords
AANES
Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria
Syrian crisis
US occupation of Syria
