The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Council (SDC) on Monday welcomed the recent decision of the Arab League to readmit the Syrian government in Damascus to the regional bloc.
The political wing of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), that controls territories in northeast Syria, said that these steps took into account the plight of Syrians, which will not end outside an integrated political process.
It also expressed hopes that the Arab initiative will contribute to the creation of conditions for activating the course of the political process in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 2254, and thus creating the appropriate conditions for a safe return of refugees.
“The Syrian Democratic Council expresses its full readiness to cooperate and support the political process that achieves the basic goals of the Syrians and ends the various negative effects of the crisis and make Syria a safe and stable country and a source of stability and peace throughout the region,” the SDC said.
The Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) last month announced its own bid for the peaceful resolution of the conflict in the war-torn country amidst signs of rapprochement between the Bashar Assad government in Damascus and members of the Arab league, which on Sunday, after 12 years of suspension, reinstated Syria’s membership.
Al-Monitor last week reported that Mazloum Abdi, the SDF’s commander-in-chief, had recently travelled to the United Arab Emirates to ask Abu Dhabi to support the Syrian Kurds’ case with the Assad regime.
The government in Damascus does not recognise the de-facto semi-autonomous Kurdish-led administration in northeast Syria and talks between the two sides have not yet yielded any results.
The SDF forms the backbone of US-led coalition forces, that fight against the Islamic State (ISIS), while the Syrian government repeatedly calls for the withdrawal of some 900 American troops in north Syria.
“Assad’s restored regional legitimacy is another indicator that Washington will eventually pull troops out of northeastern Syria,” retired Colonel Myles B. Caggins III told the Voice of America (VOA).
According to Nicholas Heras, a Syria expert at the Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy in Washington, the Arab countries’ new strategy indicates an understanding of the US-imposed rules of the road to end the Syrian conflict, and acknowledgement that the current US political and military position in northeast Syria could help the Kurds in the future.
“This reality means that the Syrian Kurds have an opportunity to build an enduring, albeit necessarily multiethnic and inclusive reality in northeast Syria that can bargain better with Damascus,” he told VOA.
