DAMASCUS: Syria’s President Ahmed Al-Sharaa issued a decree affirming the rights of the Kurdish Syrians, formally recognizing their language and restoring citizenship to all Kurdish Syrians, state news agency SANA reported on Friday.
Sharaa’s decree came after fierce clashes that broke out last week in the northern city of Aleppo, leaving at least 23 people dead, according to Syria’s health ministry, and forced more than 150,000 to flee the two Kurdish-run pockets of the city.
The clashes ended after Kurdish fighters withdrew.
The violence in Aleppo has deepened one of the main faultlines in Syria, where Al-Sharaa’s promise to unify the country under one leadership after 14 years of war has faced resistance from Kurdish forces wary of his Islamist-led government.
The decree for the first time grants Kurdish Syrians rights, including recognition of Kurdish identity as part of Syria’s national fabric. It designates Kurdish as a national language alongside Arabic and allows schools to teach it.
It also abolishes measures dating to a 1962 census in Hasaka province that stripped many Kurds of Syrian nationality, granting citizenship to all affected residents, including those previously registered as stateless.
The decree declares Nowruz, the spring and new year festival, a paid national holiday. It bans ethnic or linguistic discrimination, requires state institutions to adopt inclusive national messaging and sets penalties for incitement to ethnic strife.
The Syrian government and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), that controls the country’s northeast, have engaged in months of talks last year to integrate Kurdish-run military and civilian bodies into Syrian state institutions by the end of 2025, but there has been little progress.
Syria’s Sharaa grants Kurdish Syrians citizenship, language rights for first time, SANA says
https://arab.news/ws3nk
Syria’s Sharaa grants Kurdish Syrians citizenship, language rights for first time, SANA says
- The decree for the first time grants Kurdish Syrians rights, including recognition of Kurdish identity as part of Syria’s national fabric
- It designates Kurdish as a national language alongside Arabic and allows schools to teach it
Main donor US unclear on UNRWA future, jettisoning it would leave black hole: Agency chief
- US President Trump’s administration has accused UNRWA staff of having links with Hamas
MUNICH: The United States is still not clear about how it sees the future role of the UN Palestinian refugee agency, its chief said on Friday, warning that jettisoning it would create a black hole similar to Iraq after 2003.
US President Donald Trump’s administration has accused UNRWA staff of having links with Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, allegations UNRWA has vigorously disputed.
Washington was long UNRWA’s biggest donor, but froze funding in January 2024 after Israel accused about a dozen UNRWA staff of taking part in the deadly Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack that triggered the war in Gaza.
“There is no definitive answer, because the interest of the US is also to be successful in this process and if you get rid of an agency like ours before you have an alternative, you are also creating a huge black hole,” UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini told Reuters on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.
“Remember what happened in Iraq in 2003 when the entire administration had been dismantled (following the US-led invasion). There was no alternative and people were left without any services,” he said in an interview.
UNRWA has functioned for decades as the main international agency providing for the welfare of millions of Palestinian descendants of those who fled or were driven from homes during the war around Israel’s 1948 founding.
Lazzarini, who leaves his post at the end of March, said UNRWA did not foresee any more cuts in the immediate term and it continued to offer public health and education services that no one else was really providing.
He urged Gulf Arab countries to increase their support because their contribution did not match their strong expression of solidarity with Palestinian refugees.
Israel accuses UNRWA of bias, and the Israeli parliament passed a law in October 2024 banning the agency from operating in the country and prohibiting officials from having contact with it. (Reporting by John Irish; editing by Mark Heinrich)
