Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa appointed Kurdish chief Mazloum Abdi as a presidential adviser, state media stated on Friday, days after Abdi introduced the dissolution of his Kurdish forces underneath an integration cope with Damascus.
“Mustafa Khalil Abdi is appointed as adviser to the presidency of the republic,” introduced the decree, signed by Sharaa and revealed by state information company SANA.
Abdi, who has been recognized by a number of completely different names, was for years the chief of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Washington-backed group on the forefront of the battle towards the Islamic State jihadist group.
On Tuesday, he introduced the SDF’s dissolution, a part of a deal he made with Sharaa in January to combine the Kurds’ forces and civilian administration into the state.
Syria’s new Islamist authorities who toppled longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in December 2024 have been searching for to increase state management throughout the entire nation.
The mixing deal was a serious victory for Sharaa however an finish to long-held Kurdish hopes for autonomy.
US particular envoy to Syria Tom Barrack stated on Tuesday that “that is what actual integration appears to be like like… former counterparts with differing factors of view crafting a diplomatic answer to strengthen the sovereign nation of Syria”.
“Securing substantive roles for our valued companions” together with Abdi inside the authorities “pays due respect to their management, the sacrifices of our Kurdish companions, and the constructive contribution they’ve made to regional stability”, Barrack added, with out indicating what position Abdi was to have.
Abdi stated Tuesday that the SDF’s dissolution adopted “the completion of the method of integrating our forces into the brigades of the Syrian military”.
The SDF was fashioned in 2015 on the instigation of the USA, which was impressed by the Kurdish fighters who had defeated IS in Kobane within the north and was searching for a dependable companion within the ongoing battle towards the jihadists.
It was the de facto military of the semi-autonomous administration which the Kurds arrange in north and northeast Syria after seizing territory battling IS throughout Syria’s civil warfare.
However Abdi signed as much as the mixing deal following clashes this January that noticed the Kurds lose swathes of territory to authorities troops, and because the Kurds’ longtime backer Washington drew near the brand new authorities in Damascus.
In the course of the violence, Sharaa signed a decree enshrining the Kurds’ nationwide rights and recognising Kurdish as a nationwide language — an unprecedented step since Syria’s independence in 1946.
Final week, Abdi introduced that the mixing of the Kurdish administration with the Syrian state was full, including: “Our battle will proceed, to cement our individuals’s rights within the structure.”
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