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Asharq Al-Awsat
Asharq Al-Awsat
World
London- Asharq Al-Awsat

Northeast Syria Between Autonomous, Local Administrations

Children in al-Hol displacement camp in Hasaka governorate last April | Photo: Reuters

The Syrian government has presented the “local administration” project to be adopted by the country’s northeastern forces in areas they run, media reports said on Sunday.

The pro-government Syrian newspaper, al-Watan, quoted member of the People’s Assembly Nawaf al-Melhem as saying that the project is found in the country’s 2012 constitution, noting that northeastern forces have neither rejected nor approved it.

The delegation includes Coordinator of the National Dialogue Follow-up Committee of the Arab Socialist Baath Party Faisal Azouz and Secretary-General of Syria's Tadamun (Solidarity) Party Mohammed Abu Qassem, member of the Political Bureau of the Syrian National Social Party Tariq Al-Ahmad, Secretary-General of the Youth Party for Building and Change Berwin Ibrahim, and Head of the opposing Peaceful Change Movement Fateh Jamous.

The meeting was held in Qamishli city, northeast Syria, on Saturday between the delegation members and a delegation of Kurdish, Arab, and Syrian figures and forces.

It included Saleh Muslim, member of the Syrian Democratic Union Party (PYD), Joseph Lehdo, member of the Syriac Union Party, Mohamed Musa, head of the Kurdish Left Party, Mustafa Mashayekh, member of the Unity Party and Abdel Ilah Arabo, public relations member, according to the German news agency, DPA.

It is worth noting that there is an autonomous administration in northern and eastern Syria, a region in which a de facto autonomy has been established.

The region is controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), of which the Kurds are the most prominent components.

Melhem stressed that Saturday’s meeting was held after several coordination meetings between both parties, during which they both found that national ideas and constants bring them together.

“In previous meetings, participants asserted that we both are Syrians, and they have rights like any Syrian individual.”

“They emphasized that they are not separatists, they protect Syria’s borders, they purified Syria’s northeastern region from terrorism and had fought and made sacrifices,” he explained.

He pointed out that “in previous meetings, they also presented the autonomous project, and we presented the local administration project to discuss both together.”

“We agreed to discuss the positive points in both projects and set up an agreement to present it to the Syrian government,” he said.

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