Head of the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC) Ilham Ahmed. (Credit: Reuters)
Co-chair of the Syrian Democratic Committee (SDC), Ilham Ahmed, announced yesterday that the democratic governing body of eastern Syria will sit down with the regime of Bashar al-Assad for peace negotiations soon. The arrangement was brokered by the government of Russia, which has taken an expanded role in Syrian Kurdistan since partial disengagement of US-led Coalition forces was ordered by the Trump Administration last October.
The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (NES) is a decentralized representative government that encompasses the Kurdish, Arab and Assyrian tribes east of the Eurphrates River within the borders of Syria. As the Assad regime withdrew to fight rebel forces west of the Euphrates in 2012, the Kurdish YPG milita took up the fight against ISIS in 2014, halting the advance of the caliphate at Kobane. After the YPG formed the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) with like-minded Christian and Arab Sunni Muslim groups, they began to gradually take back their homeland from the terrorist army which had transplanted itself into Syria from Iraq.
The triumph of the SDF alliance in northeast Syria between 2015-2019 facilitated the formation of the Syrian Democratic Committee, a loosely-knit body of regional and tribal governments who each have democratic representation in a federal body. The autonomous region, which has operated independently of Damascus on domestic issues for years, also drafted and ratified a constitution which enshrines many of the democratic and individualistic values shared by Western nations.
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The United States was the primary foreign backer of the SDF between 2015 and 2019, until the Turkish invasion and establishment the so-called ‘Safe Zone” between Tel Abyad and Ras al-Ayn along the border in October, 2019. President Trump ordered the partial withdrawal of US forces from Syria in an attempt to appease his ally in Ankara. Since then, the SDF has begrudgingly agreed to the reintroduction of Syrian regime forces in Northeast Syria, and Russia has stepped into the vacuum to play the role of neutral arbiter between the SDF and Assad’s government.
The SDC is co-chaired by Ilham Ahmed, a native of Afrin, Syria, where Turkish-aligned jihadist militias committed documented war crimes against Kurdish civilians in 2018. She rose to prominence in the formation of the SDC and has been acting as its ambassadorial face across the western world in recent months, including a keynote address at FAI’s recent “Night of Prayer for the Kurds” in Washington, DC. Ms. Ahmed is optimistic about the prospect of Russian-brokered talks with the Syrian regime, calling Russia’s effort “serious” and emphasizing the Russian pledge to “exert pressure on the regime to accept a comprehensive settlement.” which would ostensibly include the recognition of the SDC and it's autonomy in some form, similar to the arrangement between the central Iraqi government of Baghdad and the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan.
However, Ms. Ahmed’s optimism was tempered by a personal knowledge of the Syrian negotiating partners who will sit across the table from her, who have heretofore ignored the SDC in previous UN-brokered peace talks. “Moving forward from dialogue to serious discussions requires an agenda and plan that would be addressed through dedicated committees”, she stated, emphasizing the importance of a practical framework to measure tangible progress towards a lasting settlement with a regime that has a 50 year history of Kurdish disenfranchisement and persecution.
Nonetheless, in the face of a Turkish onslaught and a diminishing US Coalition commitment, Ilham and her colleagues in the SDC are prepared to move forward and turn over a new leaf with Assad’s government. Russia’s mixed success in negotiating other ceasefires and peace agreements in Syria near the Golan Heights and in Idlib province will undoubtedly be tested in the coming months, but it is still the best prospect for normalization between the regime and the SDC.
An FAI source who works with Ilham Ahmed commented cautiously but positively on the new Russian peace initiative, saying, “Despite their problematic role, especially [in] siding with Assad completely, the Russians can sill guarantee a deal that could help Syria to transition. The Russians are not as friendly as the the U.S. to the Kurds but they are better than the Iranians and of course the Turks. They do not seek to change the Syrian demographic like Iran and Turkey. The best solution will be if the U.S. and Russia sit together and come up with a deal between SDF and Damascus. Unfortunately, the U.S [diplomats] still see the Syrian Islamist rebels as an alternative to Assad while there is no U.S. plan to change the regime. It's time now that real players sit together and negotiate rather than relying on changing the behavior of the Syrian regime through the Turkish supported Syrian opposition that does not have any constituency on the ground.”
Our source’s assessment was confirmed today in comments made by US State Dept Envoy for Syria, James Jeffrey, who described Turkish soldiers killed-in-action in Syria as “martyrs” and offered to provide Turkey “any support possible.” As long as the United States and other NATO stated legitimize Turkey’s criminal aggression in Syria, Russia will remain as the best, neutral alternative in Syrian peace talks.
Sources:
https://aawsat.com/english/home/article/2122816/ilham-ahmed-asharq-al-awsat-damascus-agreed-political-dialogue-guarantee-moscow
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-02-11/putin-has-painted-russia-into-a-syrian-corner
https://twitter.com/WyvernReports/status/1227287779006005248
