Syria's constitution must guarantee the rights of the Kurdish community, the country's largest ethnic minority group, a veteran politician has said, warning that the move towards a more centralised state risks fuelling tension.
Damascus has worked to integrate Kurdish-led troops into the military.
Ilham Ahmed, a Syrian Kurdish leader, told the Middle East Research Institute Forum in Erbil, Iraq, that the integration process had made significant headway, but remained a work in progress as the Kurds stake out a claim in the new Syrian political dispensation under President Ahmad Al Shara.
Ms Ahmed, a senior figure in the former Kurdish-led autonomous administration in north-east Syria, is now a member of the foreign relations committee in the Syrian parliament.
She said the process of merging the Syrian Democratic Forces with the military had helped to relink cities, reopen border crossings and create conditions for greater stability following the fall of Bashar Al Assad’s regime.
The experience of self-administration had demonstrated the importance of women’s participation in public life, Ms Ahmed added.
But she warned that their role in institutions and decision-making was now diminishing despite the integration process.
“Today, we are seeing that despite the merging process, there is a regression in the role of women and in their roles and participation in institutions and in decision making process,” she said.
Kurdish leader Mazloum Abdi announced in August from the city of Qamishli that the integration of the Kurdish administration into Syria’s state institutions was complete.
The move built on an agreement struck between Damascus and the SDF in January. The deal was mediated by Washington and Paris and endorsed by Ankara. It sought to end hostilities between Kurdish forces and the new Syrian authorities, while establishing a road map for incorporating the north-east into state institutions, while offering specific linguistic and cultural rights as well as political representation.
In January, Mr Al Shara issued a decree, after weeks of violence, offering concessions designed to foster goodwill with Syria's Kurdish population. They included recognising Nowruz as a national holiday and recognising Kurdish as a national language that may be taught in public and private schools in Kurdish-populated areas.
He also granted Syrian nationality to previously stateless Kurds.
Integration at testing stage
Ms Ahmed described the presidential decree recognising Kurdish identity, language and the community’s place in Syria as a historic achievement. But she said the measures remained incomplete, particularly regarding the right to education in the Kurdish language.
Kurdish existence had been acknowledged for the first time in Syrian history, she said, but mechanisms were still needed to fulfil the decree on the ground. She said the government was responsible for establishing those mechanisms and ensuring stability.
Tension has risen in north-east Syria over the future of Kurdish-language education, with students protesting against restrictions imposed by the new authorities in Damascus.
The Education Ministry's decision to limit instruction in Kurdish has prompted demonstrations in areas including Hasakah, Qamishli and Kobani, where pupils and teachers are demanding the right to study in their mother tongue.
Ms Ahmed said recurring hostilities were linked to discrimination, adding that the integration process remained at a stage of testing and observation.
She also challenged the negative perception of decentralisation in Syria, arguing that it was too often portrayed as a threat to the country’s territorial unity.
“In general, when we talk about decentralisation in Syria, it’s like we’re talking about the devil,” she said. Last year when The National sat down to speak to Ms Ahmed in the run up to the integration, she spoke of the importance of federalism as the main priority for Kurdish leaders.
"It appears as if decentralisation would divide Syria but it’s not like that. We are moving into a more centralised state which will cause more tension,” she said.
“Speaking and learning more languages does not lead to dividing the country or segmenting it. It strengthens the Syrian culture."
