Syria’s new defence minister has said it would not be right for US-backed Kurdish fighters based in the country’s northeast to retain their own bloc within the broader integrated Syrian armed forces.
Speaking to the Reuters news agency in Damascus, Murhaf Abu Qasra said on Sunday that the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) was procrastinating in its handling of the complex issue.
The SDF, which has carved out a semi-autonomous zone through 14 years of war, has been in talks with the new administration in Damascus led by former rebels who toppled President Bashar al-Assad on December 8.
SDF commander Mazloum Abdi (also known as Mazloum Kobani) has said one of their central demands is a decentralised administration, saying in an interview with Saudi Arabia’s Asharq News channel last week that the SDF was open to integrating with the Ministry of Defence but as “a military bloc”, and without dissolving.
Abu Qasra rejected that proposal on Sunday.
“We say that they would enter the Defence Ministry within the hierarchy of the Defence Ministry and be distributed in a military way – we have no issue there,” said Abu Qasra, who was appointed defence minister on December 21.
“But for them to remain a military bloc within the Defence Ministry, such a bloc within a big institution is not right.”
One of the minister’s priorities since taking office has been integrating Syria’s myriad anti-al-Assad factions into a unified command structure.
However, doing so with the SDF has proved challenging. The United States considers the group a key ally against ISIL (ISIS), but neighbouring Turkiye regards it as a national security threat linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Abu Qasra said he had met the SDF leaders but accused them of “procrastinating” in talks over their integration, and said incorporating them in the Defence Ministry like other former rebel factions was “a right of the Syrian state”.
He was appointed to the transitional government about two weeks after Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the rebel group to which he belongs, led the offensive that overthrew al-Assad.
The minister said he hoped to finish the integration process, including appointing some senior military figures, by March 1, when the transitional government’s time in power is set to end.
Asked how he responded to criticism that a transitional council should not make such appointments or carry out such sweeping changes to the military infrastructure, he said “security issues” had prompted the new state to prioritise the matter.
“We are in a race against time and every day makes a difference,” he said.
The new administration was also criticised over its decision to give some foreigners, including Egyptians and Jordanians, ranks in the new military.
Abu Qasra acknowledged the decision had created a firestorm but said he was not aware of any requests to extradite any of the foreign fighters.
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