Kurdish factions remain wary of the new de facto transitional government in Damascus after nearly 14 years of war across Syria.
Syria’s de facto new government in Damascus has warned that militant factions refusing to disarm will be excluded from upcoming national dialogues concerning the country’s future.
This week, Syria’s self-styled interim government in Damascus announced the formation of a new seven-member preparatory committee for an upcoming national dialogue conference.
In one of its first statements after forming on Feb. 13, preparatory committee spokesman Hassan al-Dughaim warned that groups like the U.S.-backed and predominantly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) must defer military power to the new Damascus government if they wish to be included in deliberations on a new constitution.
“Anyone who does not lay down their arms, integrate, and hand over the responsibility to the Ministry of Defense in the Syrian government will not have a place,” Dughaim said.
The calls for groups such as the SDF to disarm and entrust military power to the new government come after a nearly 14-year, multi-sided civil war, as various competing factions battled against former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, and each other. Reports of continuing sectarian violence have continued in the two months since Assad fled the country.
The new interim government in Damascus was formed primarily from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a Sunni Islamist faction that is designated a terrorist group by the U.S. government. HTS formed out of Jabhat al-Nusra, which was the Syrian offshoot of al-Qaeda.
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Despite HTS’s Sunni fundamentalist past, the group’s leader Ahmad al-Sharaa has sought to present a moderate new governance in Damascus that can satisfy Syria’s various ethnic and religious groups. Still, post-Assad Syria has been roiled by reports of sectarian violence and reprisal killings.
While HTS has accumulated power in Damascus, the SDF and other predominantly Kurdish factions have clashed with Turkish-backed forces in eastern Syria. Turkey, an ally of the United States through NATO, considers the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) a terrorist group and asserts key elements of the SDF are deeply connected to the PKK. The United States also considers the PKK a terrorist group but has sought to distinguish Kurdish SDF elements from other unsavory elements.
Syria’s new interim government has offered to integrate the SDF into the new government but has rejected the predominantly Kurdish group’s request to remain a singular armed bloc through the Syrian military’s reorganization.
Dughaim said the planned upcoming national dialogues for Syria are meant to be an opportunity to “exchange opinions, not to showcase power and strength.”
The preparatory committee for the upcoming Syrian national dialogue conference includes Dughaim, a researcher in Islamic affairs; Mohammed Mastet, a former official in the HTS-affiliated government of northwestern Syria; Mustafa al-Moussa, who also served in the HTS-affiliated government of the northwest; Youssef al-Hijr, a former HTS political chief; Hind Kabawat, a Christian and part of the opposition to Assad who worked for interfaith tolerance and women’s empowerment; and Houda Atassi, who co-founded an organization called International Humanitarian Relief.
The Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), which comprises the political wing of the SDF, accused the new Damascus government of excluding key perspectives. In a Feb. 15 statement, the SDC said, “We emphasize the participation of everyone in all stages, joints, and requirements of the transitional process.”
Reuters contributed to this report.
