SULAIMANI, Kurdistan Region – Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his family are Kakai Kurds from Khanaqin, according to a prominent Kurdish intellectual who heard the claim from Assad’s paternal uncle when he accompanied Jalal Talabani on a visit to Syria in 1993.
Dr. Izzaddin Mustafa Rasul told Rudaw about an encounter with Syria’s ruling family 24 years ago when they acknowledged their Kurdish background. “In 1993, the leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) Jalal Talabani asked me to accompany a delegation from his party’s leadership to Syria. It was just a trip for most of the delegates. I was the one accompanying Talabani for some very private matters.”
He said that Talabani’s penchant for a boneless type of fish led them to the Syrian port city of Latakia. “We ate the fish at the Sheraton Hotel. Then, Talabani asked me to accompany him to visit Jamil al-Assad, brother of Hafez al-Assad. We visited his home together. It was Talabani, Jamil al-Assad, his son, and I sitting there together.”
Hafez al-Assad is the father of the current Syrian president.
Rasul recalls whispering to Jamil al-Assad’s son, “Is it true that you have come here from Kurdistan’s Sinjar area? He answered loudly: ‘No, no, no. It is not true’. When his father heard this, he joined the conversation, saying, ‘The reality is that we are Kakai from Khanaqin, but moved to Syria and then acquired the al-Assad nickname’.”
Dr. Izzaddin Mustafa Rasul told Rudaw about an encounter with Syria’s ruling family 24 years ago when they acknowledged their Kurdish background. “In 1993, the leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) Jalal Talabani asked me to accompany a delegation from his party’s leadership to Syria. It was just a trip for most of the delegates. I was the one accompanying Talabani for some very private matters.”
He said that Talabani’s penchant for a boneless type of fish led them to the Syrian port city of Latakia. “We ate the fish at the Sheraton Hotel. Then, Talabani asked me to accompany him to visit Jamil al-Assad, brother of Hafez al-Assad. We visited his home together. It was Talabani, Jamil al-Assad, his son, and I sitting there together.”
Hafez al-Assad is the father of the current Syrian president.
Rasul recalls whispering to Jamil al-Assad’s son, “Is it true that you have come here from Kurdistan’s Sinjar area? He answered loudly: ‘No, no, no. It is not true’. When his father heard this, he joined the conversation, saying, ‘The reality is that we are Kakai from Khanaqin, but moved to Syria and then acquired the al-Assad nickname’.”
Khanaqin is located in the southern Kurdistan Region, some 300 kilometres southeast of Erbil.
Rasul thinks that Syrian Kurds can benefit from Assad’s ties to the Kurdistan Region by being more diplomatic with him. “A number of Kurdish towns and cantons in Syria’s Kurdistan are under the rule of the Kurds which Bashar al-Assad have recognized and have now become a de facto state. This is while he didn’t even believe in the existence of the Kurds before. I think Assad will not be bad and the Kurds will achieve even more if the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the Democratic Union Party (PYD) can be softer.”
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