It came at the end of a two-day meeting in the northeastern Syrian town of Rmeilan organized by the main USA ally in Syria in the fight against the Islamic State, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), which is the dominant political party in the Kurdish areas of Syria. The PYD had already unilaterally declared the creation of three self-governing “cantons” within a vaguely defined Kurdish area known as Rojava.
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The newly established system is expected to replace the autonomous cantons in Syria Kurdistan (Rojava).
“Any declaration to that effect would be without any legal value and void of any legal, political, social or economic effect as long as it does not reflect the will of the entire Syrian people with all their political leanings and social spectra, who are all committed to the national unity and territorial integrity of their country”, he added.
“We continue stressing the need to implement the principles of the inter-Syrian dialogue enshrined in the Geneva communique, the documents adopted by the International Syria Support Group and U.N. Security Council resolution 2254 without singling out a separate isolated group from a broad range of the Syrian opposition that would position itself as the only equal partner for negotiations with the official Damascus government”, Zakharova said.
Even Washington, which has backed Kurdish fighters with air strikes on Islamic State targets, was displeased.
The United States supports the Syrian Kurds with weapons and airstrikes, but it joined the Syrian government in saying in a statement Wednesday that, “We have not and will not recognize any “self-rule” semi-autonomous zone”.
It represents a more “rational” opposition, which can serve as “a bridge between the regime and the (HNC) delegation”, said Qadri Jamil, co-president of the group and Syria’s former deputy premier, who was sacked by Assad in 2013 and is now viewed by Damascus as a moderate opponent.
The PYD has consistently said it wants a model of decentralized government for Syria, not partition. The government has indicated that a “national unity government” with opposition participation was the most on offer, an idea ruled out by the HNC.
The US and Turkey, which is wary of anything that might encourage separatism by its own Kurdish minority, have also warned against such a unilateral move.
“The experience resulted from discussions with Arabs and Assyrians, Chechens, Armenians, Turkmen”. It will cover a 400-mile stretch of land along the borders of Syria and Turkey, stretching from Iraq to the Euphrates River.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA said on its Twitter account that health, nutrition, hygiene and emergency items are on the way to the rebel-held towns of Madaya Zabadani, near the border with Lebanon, and the government-held villages of Foua and Kfarya in the northwestern Idlib province.
“We will cooperate with all the institutions and factions that are present in this country because we are brothers and our makeup is one”, Mansour Saloum, a Kurdish political official, said Thursday in an interview broadcast by local media outlet Adar Press.
From Moscow, Vladimir Putin warned that despite the Russian drawdown in Syria – a surprising move the Russian president announced this week to bolster the Geneva talks – Russia can again build up its forces “in a few hours” in the Mideast country if necessary.
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The Russian president voiced hope that the partial withdrawal of Russian forces from Syria would help Syria’s indirect peace talks that began in Geneva on Monday.
