ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Kurdish National Council (ENKS/KNC), an umbrella group of Kurdish opposition parties in northeast Syria (Rojava), on Sunday welcomed a decree issued by Syrian interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa allegedly to guarantee certain Kurdish rights, describing it as a positive but preliminary step.
Sharaa on Friday addressed the Kurds in a video message, announcing that he had signed a “special decree” guaranteeing Kurdish “rights and certain particularities,” as clashes were ongoing between Syrian state forces and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northern Syria.
The ENKS said it views the “decree a positive step, as it is the first official approach to address the issue of Kurdish rights publicly and directly.”
It added that addressing the long-standing census issue is a measure that “would contribute to lifting historical injustices against tens of thousands of Kurdish citizens.”
According to the decree, all Syrian Kurds are to be granted citizenship, including those previously classified as “unrecorded” under the former regime of Bashar al-Assad. Damascus and its regional ally, Turkey, have repeatedly said Kurds stripped of citizenship under the previous government would be granted Syrian nationality.
Syrian Kurds have faced state discrimination since the country’s establishment nearly 80 years ago, including restrictions on political, economic, and cultural rights. The Kurdish language was banned from public use for decades. Following a 1962 census that Human Rights Watch said was conducted arbitrarily, tens of thousands of Kurds were stripped of citizenship after being labeled “alien infiltrators” from Turkey.
The ENKS said the decree “is a step on the path toward a comprehensive and just solution to the Kurdish issue, as a political and national issue that requires deeper treatment, based on constitutional recognition of national rights and ensuring genuine partnership in state-building.”
On Saturday, the Kurdish-led Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES), which governs Rojava, offered a more cautious response, saying that “rights are not protected by temporary decrees, but rather safeguarded and entrenched through permanent constitutions that reflect the will of all peoples and components.”
In March, Sharaa approved a 53-article constitutional declaration that draws heavily on Islamic jurisprudence, stipulates that the president must be a Muslim, sets out a five-year transitional period, and retains the name Syrian Arab Republic. The document has been rejected by Kurds, Druze, and Alawites.
The ENKS called “for stopping all military actions through a comprehensive ceasefire, commitment to the provisions of the ceasefire agreement announced today, and seizing this opportunity to deepen political and national dialogue to resolve all national issues and contribute to strengthening civil peace and consolidating the country's unity on just foundations that guarantee the rights of everyone, individuals and components.”
Under the decree, Kurdish is recognized as a “national language” and permitted in schools in areas where “Kurds constitute a notable percentage of the population,” as part of elective curricula. Arabic remains Syria’s only official language, and the decree does not mandate Kurdish-language instruction nationwide.
Sharaa has also announced an agreement signed with SDF chief Mazloum Abdi to immediately halt clashes and integrate SDF-held areas into state institutions. The deal includes significant concessions by the Kurdish-led force. Implementation of a landmark March 10 agreement between the two sides had previously stalled after the SDF pushed to be incorporated as a unified bloc, a demand rejected by Damascus, which has insisted on absorbing SDF fighters individually into regular army units.
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