Source : INDIA TODAY NEWS
The commander of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces on Tuesday announced the group’s official dissolution, marking the end of a force that once controlled a de facto autonomous zone in northeast Syria. Speaking at a news conference at the presidential palace in Damascus, Mazloum Abdi said the SDF had completed its merger with the Syrian army and would no longer operate as an independent force.
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The move follows major shifts in Syria’s political and military landscape. The SDF lost most of its territory in northeast Syria in a government offensive in January and later signed the merger deal with the army. Once the main US partner in Syria in the fight against the Islamic State group, the SDF saw its position change after the ouster of former Syrian President Bashar Assad in December 2024 and Washington’s closer ties with the new government in Damascus led by interim Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa.
Abdi said the SDF “carried a heavy responsibility during one of the most difficult periods in Syria’s history”. He added: “Today, circumstances have changed, and the country has entered a new phase, one of peace and participation in building a new Syria,” as he announced the “end of the SDF’s mission” and “its dissolution as an independent military force”.
Under the 50-year rule of the Assad dynasty, Kurds in Syria were marginalised and many were denied citizenship. Public celebrations of Nowruz, the ancient Persian spring new year festival also celebrated by Kurds in Syria, Turkey and Iraq as well as Iran, were banned. After the uprising against the Assad government began in 2011, Kurdish forces filled the vacuum left by the withdrawal of government troops from large parts of the northeast. At one stage, the SDF controlled about 25 per cent of Syria.
The Kurds were initially wary of the post-Assad government and were unwilling to give up their de facto autonomy. Some of the insurgent groups involved in the offensive that ousted Assad were Turkish-backed forces that had clashed with the SDF in the past. Turkey viewed the SDF as a terrorist organisation because of its ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, a separatist group that fought a decades-long insurgency in Turkey. A peace process is now underway.
Kurds also questioned whether the new Sunni Arab-led authorities would give them real representation in the new government, even as al-Sharaa sought to win their support. During ceasefire talks with the SDF in January, he issued a decree that strengthened Kurdish rights. The decree made Kurdish an official language alongside Arabic, declared Nowruz a national holiday, and restored the citizenship of tens of thousands of Kurds in northeastern Hassakeh province after it had been taken away in the 1962 census. Abdi said al-Sharaa had also promised that Kurds would have the right to education in their own language, a key issue for the country’s Kurdish population.
With the SDF now dissolved after merging with the Syrian army, the announcement closes a major chapter in Syria’s conflict, while also underlining the changing place of the Kurds in the country’s new political order.
With PTI Inputs
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SOURCE :- TIMES OF INDIA
