Syria’s new defence minister has said it would not be right for US-backed Kurdish fighters based in the country’s northeast to retain their own bloc within the broader integrated Syrian armed forces,
Al Jazeera reports.
Speaking to the Reuters news agency in Damascus, Murhaf Abu Qasra said on Sunday that the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) was procrastinating in its handling of the complex issue.
The SDF, which has carved out a semi-autonomous zone through 14 years of war, has been in talks with the new administration in Damascus led by former rebels who toppled President Bashar al-Assad on December 8.
SDF commander Mazloum Abdi (also known as Mazloum Kobani) has said one of their central demands is a decentralised administration, saying in an interview with Saudi Arabia’s Asharq News channel last week that the SDF was open to integrating with the Ministry of Defence but as “a military bloc”, and without dissolving.
Abu Qasra rejected that proposal on Sunday.
“We say that they would enter the Defence Ministry within the hierarchy of the Defence Ministry and be distributed in a military way – we have no issue there,” said Abu Qasra, who was appointed defence minister on December 21.
“But for them to remain a military bloc within the Defence Ministry, such a bloc within a big institution is not right.”
One of the minister’s priorities since taking office has been integrating Syria’s myriad anti-al-Assad factions into a unified command structure.
However, doing so with the SDF has proved challenging. The United States considers the group a key ally against ISIL (ISIS), but neighbouring Turkiye regards it as a national security threat linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
