ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Kurdish administration in northeast Syria (Rojava) on Sunday condemned the new authority in Damascus for recently holding an “illegal” conference with the participation of “terrorists.”
The new authorities in Syria on Wednesday held an unprecedented conference in Damascus, dissolving all armed groups and the country’s parliament while abolishing the country’s constitution. They also officially declared Ahmed al-Sharaa the new leader of the country. The key participants of the event included commanders from Sharaa’s Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and the pro-Turkey Syrian National Army (SNA). It was an all-military and all-men meeting.
The Rojava administration said it condemned the holding of such a meeting “especially since among the attendees were some individuals listed as terrorists whose hands are stained with the blood of the Syrian people… We affirm that such a meeting is illegal and does not represent the aspirations of Syria's components.”
It mentioned Ahmad Ihsan Fayyad al-Hayes, commonly known as “Abu Hatem Shaqra” - leader of Ahrar al-Sharqiya who is sanctioned by the US for being “directly complicit in many of the militia’s human rights abuses” - and Mohammad Hussein al-Jasim (Abu Amsha), leader of the Suleiman Shah Brigade. Washington has also sanctioned the latter, accusing him of ordering his militants to “forcibly displace Kurdish residents and seize their property” in northern Syria.
Syrian Kurds accuse Abu Hatem Shaqra of assassinating Kurdish female politician Hevrin Khalaf in October 2019 during Turkey’s latest military offensive against the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northern Syria.
Nadine Maenza, former chair of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), said on X on Thursday that she was “stunned” that Abu Hatem Shaqra spoke at the so-called victory conference in Damascus last week.
“We are all rooting for Syria to succeed but that can only happen by including the rich diversity of all religious & ethnic communities in the country,” she added.
The Rojava administration also condemned Damascus for excluding other ethnic and religious groups.
“We also affirm that processes taking place outside the framework of the Syrian National Conference and without the participation of political, revolutionary, and popular forces are considered "incomplete," and that holding a national dialogue conference in Syria without excluding any Syrian parties or components is the optimal solution to end the instability Syria is currently experiencing and lead our people to safety,” it noted.
The new administration in Damascus has said it plans to hold a national conference with the participation of all ethnic and religious groups but no date has been set.
“Excluding any party or component will prevent achieving the goals of our people's revolution, and the reality will not differ from the previous regime,” it stressed.
The new Syrian security forces have not clashed with the SDF, Rojava’s de facto army, and there are ongoing talks about the future of the Kurdish enclave and the inclusion of the SDF in the country’s new security apparatus.
