ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Attempts by Kurdish authorities in northeast Syria (Rojava) to find a peaceful solution to the Syrian crisis with Damascus have failed due to the regime’s resistance to change, Rojava’s top diplomat in the US said late Tuesday.
Speaking in a virtual discussion series hosted by the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, Sinam Mohamad, the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC) representative to the US, said that they have “tried a lot” to have peaceful talks with the regime “in order to have stability and reach a solution for the Syrian crisis.”
“But the Syrian regime still has the mentality to control the whole region as it was before 2011.”
President Bashar Assad lost control of swathes of Syria after the 2011 uprising, prompted by other anti-government demonstrations across the Middle East and North Africa. His forces withdrew from Kurdish areas in order to focus on Arab-majority areas near the capital city of Damascus, where his troops were battling rebel forces.
The regime has made attempts to regain all the areas it has lost in the last 10 years. Most Kurdish areas are still under the control of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) - the military arm of the SDC.
Kurdish officials have held several meetings with regime officials in the past to recognize the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (NES), but the regime insists on full restoration of its authority there. Mohamad said all the talks have failed.
The NES is excluded from key negotiation committees like the UN-sponsored group to draft a new constitution for Syria. The committee consists of members of the regime, the Turkey-backed Syrian opposition and independent individuals.
Mohamad called on the UN and US to work on including them in all talks about the future of Syria, saying all their efforts to be included in them have failed.
“We tried a lot to be at the table at [the] Geneva peace talk and the constitution committee,” she said.
