Kurds Demand Damascus for Mutual Recognition

Syrian Kurds attend an impromptu parade in Afrin as civilians enlist to fight an assault by Turkish troops and allied rebels on the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) in Syria's border region. AFP file photo
Syrian Kurds attend an impromptu parade in Afrin as civilians enlist to fight an assault by Turkish troops and allied rebels on the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) in Syria's border region. AFP file photo
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Kurds Demand Damascus for Mutual Recognition

Syrian Kurds attend an impromptu parade in Afrin as civilians enlist to fight an assault by Turkish troops and allied rebels on the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) in Syria's border region. AFP file photo
Syrian Kurds attend an impromptu parade in Afrin as civilians enlist to fight an assault by Turkish troops and allied rebels on the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) in Syria's border region. AFP file photo

Syrian Kurdish officials have proposed a “roadmap” to the guarantor Russian State demanding a series of measures from the Syrian regime in exchange for recognizing it.

In the 11-clause document, a copy of which was obtained by Asharq Al-Awsat, Kurds requested that Damascus approves their self-rule in the northeast of the country.

In return, they proposed to recognize “elected President Bashar Assad,” and the centralized state, along with its borders, flag and the army.

An official told Asharq Al-Awsat that Kurdish officials have handed over to Russia a detailed proposal including the same principles listed by top commander of the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) Sipan Hemo during his two-day unofficial visit to Damascus and Moscow at the end of last year.

Kurds have demanded Moscow to act as the guarantor to any agreement with Damascus.

Hemo had visited Damascus and Moscow to make a “secret offer” on the group’s approval to hand over the border area with Turkey to the “Syrian State” in exchange for forming a local administration under Russian guarantees.

Days after US President Donald Trump’s decision to pull US forces out of Syria, Hemo traveled to the Russian military base in Hmeimim, then held a secret meeting in Damascus with Syrian intelligence chief Ali Mamlouk and Defense Minister Gen Ali Abdullah Ayoub, in the presence of a Russian military delegation.

According to the Kurdish official, the “roadmap” stipulates that Syria is a unified and centralized state with its capital Damascus, and its current international borders.

In the text, Kurds also admit that “Bashar Assad is the President of all Syrians in line with the elections held in 2014.”

It also notes that the country’s natural resources are a national wealth shared by all Syrians.

Around 90 percent of Syria's oil comes from the region that Kurds control.

The text also noted that Kurds recognize a single army for the Syria state. But the Kurds have sought to negotiate a deal for the Syrian Democratic Forces, which has 70,000 to 80,000 fighters, to be integrated in the national army.



Amnesty Accuses Israel of 'Live-streamed Genocide' against Gaza Palestinians

TOPSHOT - Palestinians inspect the damage after an Israeli strike on the Yafa school building, a school-turned-shelter, in Gaza City on April 23, 2025. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)
TOPSHOT - Palestinians inspect the damage after an Israeli strike on the Yafa school building, a school-turned-shelter, in Gaza City on April 23, 2025. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)
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Amnesty Accuses Israel of 'Live-streamed Genocide' against Gaza Palestinians

TOPSHOT - Palestinians inspect the damage after an Israeli strike on the Yafa school building, a school-turned-shelter, in Gaza City on April 23, 2025. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)
TOPSHOT - Palestinians inspect the damage after an Israeli strike on the Yafa school building, a school-turned-shelter, in Gaza City on April 23, 2025. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)

Amnesty International on Tuesday accused Israel of committing a "live-streamed genocide" against Palestinians in Gaza by forcibly displacing most of the population and deliberately creating a humanitarian catastrophe.

In its annual report, Amnesty charged that Israel had acted with "specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, thus committing genocide".

Israel has rejected accusations of "genocide" from Amnesty, other rights groups and some states in its war in Gaza.

The conflict erupted after the Palestinian group Hamas's deadly October 7, 2023 attacks inside Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Hamas also abducted 251 people, 58 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel in response launched a relentless bombardment of the Gaza Strip and a ground operation that according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory has left at least 52,243 dead.

"Since 7 October 2023, when Hamas perpetrated horrific crimes against Israeli citizens and others and captured more than 250 hostages, the world has been made audience to a live-streamed genocide," Amnesty's secretary general Agnes Callamard said in the introduction to the report.

"States watched on as if powerless, as Israel killed thousands upon thousands of Palestinians, wiping out entire multigenerational families, destroying homes, livelihoods, hospitals and schools," she added.

'Extreme levels of suffering'

Gaza's civil defense agency said early Tuesday that four people were killed and others injured in an Israeli air strike on displaced persons' tents near the Al-Iqleem area in Southern Gaza.

The agency earlier warned fuel shortages meant it had been forced to suspend eight out of 12 emergency vehicles in Southern Gaza, including ambulances.

The lack of fuel "threatens the lives of hundreds of thousands of citizens and displaced persons in shelter centers," it said in a statement.

Amnesty's report said the Israeli campaign had left most of the Palestinians of Gaza "displaced, homeless, hungry, at risk of life-threatening diseases and unable to access medical care, power or clean water".

Amnesty said that throughout 2024 it had "documented multiple war crimes by Israel, including direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects, and indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks".

It said Israel's actions forcibly displaced 1.9 million Palestinians, around 90 percent of Gaza's population, and "deliberately engineered an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe".

Even as protesters hit the streets in Western capitals, "the world's governments individually and multilaterally failed repeatedly to take meaningful action to end the atrocities and were slow even in calling for a ceasefire".

Meanwhile, Amnesty also sounded alarm over Israeli actions in the occupied Palestinian territory of the West Bank, and repeated an accusation that Israel was employing a system of "apartheid".

"Israel's system of apartheid became increasingly violent in the occupied West Bank, marked by a sharp increase in unlawful killings and state-backed attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinian civilians," it said.

Heba Morayef, Amnesty director for the Middle East and North Africa region, denounced "the extreme levels of suffering that Palestinians in Gaza have been forced to endure on a daily basis over the past year" as well as "the world's complete inability or lack of political will to put a stop to it".