The head of the mostly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces on Wednesday renewed his demand for decentralised governance in Syria as the group faces growing pressure to surrender territorial gains made during the civil war to the new government that replaced the Assad regime last year.
“After 15 years of war, Syria must become a decentralised state, with each region managing its own affairs. This is the reality we face, and we must work within this framework,” Mazloum Abdi told the Middle East Peace and Security Conference in Duhok, in the Kurdish-administered north of Iraq.
The SDF has been under threat of becoming a casualty of the seismic changes in Syria ushered by the toppling of former president Bashar Al Assad in December last year. Overnight, Damascus shifted from the orbit of Iran and Russia to a government supported by Turkey and the US, which created the SDF in 2015 as the ground component in the fight against ISIS.
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