ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Speaking of local elections held on Friday in the Kurdish enclave in northern Syria, the Syrian regime’s permanent representative to the UN said any “unilateral action” is rejected by Damascus.
“Any unilateral action is rejected by the Syrian government. There are foundations for action where there is capital and a government,” Bashar al-Jaafari, Syria’s UN envoy and its top representative at the Geneva peace talks told Rudaw, adding that only the Syrian government is allowed to decide on “the appropriate form in this regard.”
General elections for city and provincial councils in the three cantons of Afrin, Euphrates and Jazira began in Syrian Kurdistan Friday morning, the second stage of elections. It will then be followed by parliamentary elections early next year in a move to strengthen the pillars of an autonomous, federal Kurdish region in the country, according to local media.
The Syrian regime does not recognize the elections held today, and has so far decided to not recognize the self-styled Democratic Federal System of Northern Syria, otherwise called Rojava.
“There is no such thing as Kurdish areas in northern Syria, but there are Syrian areas. There is something called Kurdish components of Syria,” Jaafari responded to a question by the Rudaw reporter.
He continued to deride the elections saying “there is a parliament, a government and all the other institutions of the state, and all ideas can be put into it. The main reference is the capital.”
“We say that we have Syrian Kurds, Syrians, Assyrians, Syriacs and Circassians, but they are all Syrians before anything else… there are no Kurdish areas, but Syrian areas where the Syrian Kurdish component exists. "
Kurdish authorities in Rojava are now in control of about one third of Syria, including some Arab-majority cities such as Raqqa, which was liberated by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in October. Raqqa was not included in the Friday election.
Representatives from other parts of Kurdistan including from the Kurdistan Region were in Rojava to observe the election. Rojava authorities invited three Kurdish lawmakers from the Kurdish parliament who represent Kurdistan Region’s three largest parties.
Rojava's main opposition, the Kurdistan National Council (ENKS), has boycotted the elections.
Rojava authorities, whose official name is Democratic Federal System of Northern Syria will also hold a vote in 2018 for the body that will act as the self-autonomous enclave’s parliament.
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