Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Photo: screengrab/Rudaw
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A year after the ousting of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, the United Nations will continue to push the transitional government to be inclusive of all religious and ethnic minorities, a spokesperson said on Thursday.
“We will continue to speak up and to encourage them to be as inclusive as possible in all of their policies to ensure Syrians of all religion and ethnic groups feel protected and feel recognized,” Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for the UN secretary-general, told Rudaw.
Following a swift offensive in early December last year, a coalition of opposition forces led by the now-dissolved jihadist group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) toppled the regime of longtime dictator Assad and ended nearly 14 years of civil war. In late January, HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa was appointed interim president and pledged commitment to an inclusive political process.
His government, however, has come under fire for several controversial decisions.
In March, Sharaa signed a constitutional declaration that centered on Islamic jurisprudence, drawing criticism from Syria’s Christian, Druze, Kurdish, and Alawite communities who viewed it as exclusionary. He has also highly centralized power, again drawing condemnation.
The country’s post-civil war transition has been marred by violence. Deadly clashes broke out in mid-July between Druze fighters and Sunni Bedouin tribes in southern Suwayda province. The conflict escalated further with the involvement of Syrian government forces before a ceasefire was announced on July 19.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported in late August that the death toll from the Suwayda violence had neared 2,000, including around 765 Druze civilians who were “executed in the field by defense and interior ministry forces.”
Earlier, in March, violence broke out in Alawite-majority coastal regions after Assad loyalists attacked security forces aligned with the country’s interim leadership. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the clashes resulted in 1,700 deaths, most of them Alawite civilians. Many casualties were attributed to government or pro-government forces.
Dujarric said that the UN has “spoken very clearly against” the sectarian tensions.
The Kurdish-led administration in northeast Syria is in talks with Damascus about integrating their civilian and military institutions into federal government structures and is pushing for decentralization.
Namo Abdulla contributed to this article from New York.
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