Syria's Sharaa rejects Kurdish demands for decentralization

Syria's Islamist leaders said on Sunday that Kurdish demands for the country to adopt a decentralized 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.

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.



Reuters