Syria’s Kurds have declared a federal region in areas under their control in the north of the conflict-riven country. The government of Syria and opposition have rejected the move.
The announcement is likely to anger neighbouring Turkey and has complicated the agenda for the peace talks that were scheduled in Geneva aimed at ending the five-year civil war.
The United States, a key backer of Kurdish fighters in the battle against the Islamic State jihadist group, has also warned it would not recognise any self-ruled Kurdish region within Syria.
More than 150 delegates from Kurdish, Arab, Assyrian and other parties meeting in Syria agreed to create a “federal system” unifying territory run by Kurds across several Syrian provinces.
Sihanuk Dibo from Syria’s leading Kurdish faction, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), said delegates to the conference “approved” the plan. The announcement came on the second day of the meeting in Rmeilan, a border town in Syria’s northeast Hasakeh province.
Kurdish parties already operate a system of three “autonomous administrations” in Syria’s north, with independent police forces and schools. The three cantons stretch along Syria’s northern border with Turkey and are known as Afrin and Kobane, both in Aleppo province, and Jazire in Hasakeh province.
The Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) is considered one of the most effective forces fighting IS and has cleared the jihadists from swathes of territory in those areas.
Turkey considers the YPG to be the Syrian affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), an outlawed group that has waged a decades-long insurgency against Ankara. The new “federal system” is expected to centralise governance in the three cantons under councils elected by the people.
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