The head of the Executive Council of the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), affiliated with the Autonomous Administration, Ilham Ahmed, said that none of the meetings with the Assad government have yielded any results.
Ahmed said, during the eighth round of dialogue of the Council in the city of Qamishli on Tuesday, that all the attempts initiated by the Autonomous Administration in northeastern Syria to reach understandings with the Assad regime have proven unsuccessful, as the regime sabotaged these attempts.
Ahmed talked about a previous Russian initiative to enable an agreement between the Administration and the regime, saying that “the Russians showed willingness to play the guarantor role, but they failed at it,” according to reporting by Hawar News Agency.
She added that, “the Syrian government, instead of solving the Syrian crisis, has been destabilizing the security and stability of the region and creating discord between the Kurds and the Arabs,” adding that, “the regime undermines all the attempts that we initiate in order to reach understandings and a political solution in Syria.”
The SDC had announced in mid-2018 the start of “unconditional” talks with the Assad regime about political and military issues. Back then, an SDC delegation headed by Ahmed paid a public visit to the capital Damascus, a first, during which she met with regime officials.
However, in 2019, Kurdish groups acknowledged the failure of those talks, and attributed the matter to, “the Syrian regime’s insistence on its old policy, and its condition to impose its control over the regions of northeastern Syria, under the pretext of maintaining national sovereignty and the integrity of the Syrian territories.”
Several negotiations and agreements have taken place between the regime and the military authorities of the Autonomous Administration, the most prominent of which was the negotiation regarding the presence of Assad’s forces in the city of Manbij, to prevent the Turks from entering it, as well as handing over oil fields to the regime in exchange for providing protection to the areas under SDF control.
The Deputy Foreign Minister in the Assad government, Faisal al-Mikdad, attacked the SDF at the end of last year, accusing them of treason and adopting a separatist agenda, stressing the regime’s refusal to enter into negotiations with them again.
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.
