Rojava seeks partnership but Damascus wants assimilation, says negotiator

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The main disagreement between the interim Syrian government and the Kurdish-led administration in the northeast (Rojava) is over how to integrate Rojava institutions into state structures with Damascus pushing for full assimilation, a member of the negotiating team told Rudaw on Friday. 

“The government in Damascus wishes to dissolve all civilian and security institutions of the Autonomous Administration and assimilate them into the central Damascus government,” said Sanharib Barsom, president of the Syriac Union Party (SUP) and a member of the Rojava council negotiating their future with Damascus.

“There is a misunderstanding between us and the government in Damascus on the details of the merger as each of us have our own interpretation,” he said. “We want our institutions to partner with the ones in Damascus and work together, while Damascus wants them dissolved and assimilated.”

In a landmark agreement signed between Mazloum Abdi, commander of Rojava’s de facto army the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), and Syrian interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa on March 10, both parties agreed to merge Rojava’s institutions into state structures. Negotiations between the two sides on implementing the deal have stalled and Damascus called off planned talks in Paris. The deal also included the handover of Rojava’s border crossings and airports to the central government.

Barsom said that the main point of disagreement is the structure of the new Syrian government. 

“We as Syrians look forward to developing a new model that satisfies the aspirations and desires of all our people in northeast Syria and other regions that desire to have autonomy within their territories, to be able to manage their own affairs and select their own representatives without interference or appointments imposed from Damascus,” he said. 

He noted that they are not prepared to give up the administration they built in Rojava during Syria’s civil war. “We worked with this model for ten years and we can make changes to it but we cannot go back to a central government model.” 

The autonomous administration in northeast Syria is wary of returning to the human rights violations and mistreatment they suffered for decades. Under the ousted regime of Bashar al-Assad, many Kurds in Syria did not have the right to vote and did not have citizenship. They were referred to as “Maktumeen” (the silenced). Their language was banned and many activists were jailed and tortured for speaking up.

“Negotiations with the government in Damascus have stopped now since they refused to participate in the next round of talks in Paris… We do not know when the negotiations will start again as we are still waiting on a response from Damascus,” Barsom said. 

The transitional constitution adopted by Damascus enshrines a strong, centralized authority.