Following years of political deadlock, Syria’s largest Kurdish parties came together and signed a landmark agreement on April 26. In a meeting of 400 delegates, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), one of the largest parties within the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, and the Kurdish National Council (ENKS), agreed on a joint vision for a decentralized and democratic Syria that guarantees the rights of Kurds and the country’s other minorities, and called for a national dialogue to reshape Syria’s future.
On June 4, they announced the official formation of a joint delegation to Damascus to negotiate a long-term settlement for Syria’s future. The delegation will include representatives from both the Kurdish National Council (ENKS) and the Democratic Union Party (PYD), as well as independent figures.
Kurds have historically been completely excluded from all of Syrian public life. The Ba’ath regime denied hundred of thousands of Kurds citizenship and refused to officially recognize their existence on state documents. As the regime lost control of north-east Syria during the war against ISIS, Syrian Kurds were able to establish self-governance in Kurdish-majority areas including Derik, Kobani, and Afrin, and establish the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria with the region’s Arab, Syriac, Assyrian, Turkmen and Circassian communities.
In the intervening years, the ENKS publicly denounced the Autonomous Administration and divisions between the two main Kurdish parties have hindered their ability to effectively negotiate on behalf of the roughly two million strong Kurdish population, as well as the multi-ethnic population living in the northeast, with the Assad regime in Damascus. The fall of Bashar al-Assad, US support, and extensive work by notable Syrian and Iraqi Kurdish leaders including SDF General Commander Mazloum Abdi and Kurdistan Region of Iraq President Nechirvan Barzani, have improved intra-Kurdish relations, and laid the ground work for the agreement made in April and the upcoming delegation.
As the joint delegation heads to Damascus to negotiate with President al-Sharaa’s government as part of continuing efforts to unify the country, some efforts diplomatic efforts on behalf of the Autonomous Administration regions have already seen success. Damascus and the Autonomous Administration reached a successful accord on the governance of the Kurdish-majority neighborhoods of Aleppo, the status of the Tishreen Dam between Kobani and Manbij, and the situation of the population of the al-Hawl Camp, where most of the imprisoned ISIS fighters’ family members are located.