Syria Warns Kurds Will Be Excluded From National Dialogue If They Don’t Disarm and Submit

The fighting between the Kurdish SDF and the forces of Turkey and its proxy the SNA continues apace in northern Syria with no signs of ending. Turkey targeted civilian infrastructure, leading to power outages and water cutoffs for some 100 Kurdish villages around Tabqa.

Turkey’s interest in Syria is driven by the Erdogan government’s desire to tamp down Kurdish autonomy in the region. Turkey is pushing the new Islamist government to do more against the Kurds, and the Turkish Defense Ministry has offered to “relocate” Turkish ground troops into northern Syria to that end.

So far, the al-Qaeda linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the new government in Syria, hasn’t moved militarily against the Kurds directly, but it has repeatedly denounced the idea of Kurdish autonomy and is stepping up the rhetoric.

The Syrian government has issued a statement warning that if the Kurds don’t agree to disarm and submit, they will be excluded from the meetings on national dialogue between various Syrian parties. The meetings are meant to produce a statement related to the eventual creation of a constitution.

The spokesman of that national dialogue committee meanwhile has insisted that the Kurdish SDF “do not represent our people,” and that only groups that the HTS believes do represent Syria will be allowed to participate.

Turkey is keen for the new Syria to eliminate all autonomy, particularly the Kurdish sort. In the past month Turkey has threatened a full invasion of Syria if the SDF isn’t totally eliminated. Turkey has also urged the HTS government to take control of the ISIS prison camps in the northeast, which are also run by the SDF.

Groups within the Kurdish autonomous government in Syria, the AANES, have emphasized the importance their ability to continue protecting their rights within the new Syria. This includes ongoing training exercises for their fighting forces, which runs contrary to Turkey’s vision for the region.

The AANES, however, aren’t focused exclusively on armed resistance to Turkey or exclusion from the conversation on where Syria is going. The group is sending representatives to the Munich Security Conference scheduled for this weekend.

The UN Special Envoy for Syria, Geir Pederson, applauded reports of a communication channel between the HTS government and the SDF. He did qualify this, saying that “genuine compromises” are needed for the region to become peaceful and stable.