The Syrian Negotiating Committee has set four conditions that must be fulfilled should the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC) be allowed to become part of it. This coincides with a statement by a former American envoy that his country does not support a Kurdish state in Syria.
The Head of the High Negotiations Committee (HNC), Anas al-Abdah, said in an interview with Al-Modon on Sunday that “SDC joining HNC has not been formally discussed,” but he stressed that the existence of SDC as one of the components of the committee could be on the table if four conditions are met.
According to Abdah, the conditions are “for it to give up its ties to the [Kurdistan Workers’ Party] PKK, expel foreign Kurdish elements from Syria, commit to the geographic unity of Syria and the goals of the Syrian revolution, and to give up any plans to form an autonomous administration or [implement] separatist agendas.”
The Autonomous Administration had announced its rejection of any decisions as a result of the meeting of the Syrian Constitutional Committee in Geneva. The Vice-Presidency of the Executive Council in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, Hamdan al-Abed, said that “all that has been proposed since the beginning of the Syrian crisis is the sharing of power and influence.” Abed added, according to Hawar News Agency, at the beginning of this month, that “any decision issued by any conference or committee that does not take into account the interest of the Syrian people and does not guarantee the rights of all its components is setting itself up for failure. The Syrian people are the ones who decide their destiny, away from foreign alliances and dictates.”
Announcing the conditions coincided with the statements of former US envoy in northeastern Syria, ambassador William Robak, about the Autonomous Administration. “The Autonomous Administration is not a state,” Robak said in an interview with Al-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper. “It is unstable, and is a makeshift solution to fight [the Islamic State] ISIS. American presence is important for these measures [fighting ISIS] to continue. However, we will not stay in northeast Syria forever.” Robak added that “the situation in this region is different from the Kurdistan region of Iraq, and what we said and did, as well as our relationship with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), was clear: we do not support the establishment of a Kurdish state there and we do not believe that working on establishing it is a constructive approach.”
According to Robak, the US provided advice to the SDF, which relied on “the continuation of the relationship with the US and the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS and the provision of security in northeastern Syria, as well as implementing confidence-building measures and not provoking Turkey – such as establishing a state or using certain ideology or Öcalan symbols, referring to the leader of the PKK, Abdullah Öcalan.”
This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
