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Kurdish Progressive Party to Asharq Al-Awsat: Damascus’ Opting for Military Solution Led to Foreign Meddling

Kurdish Democratic Progressive Party politburo official Ahmed Sulaiman. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Kurdish Democratic Progressive Party politburo official Ahmed Sulaiman. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
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Kurdish Progressive Party to Asharq Al-Awsat: Damascus’ Opting for Military Solution Led to Foreign Meddling

Kurdish Democratic Progressive Party politburo official Ahmed Sulaiman. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Kurdish Democratic Progressive Party politburo official Ahmed Sulaiman. (Asharq Al-Awsat)

The Kurdish Democratic Progressive Party, one of Syria’s oldest Kurdish parties, believes that efforts to normalize relations between the Damascus regime and Ankara came at Russia’s request and Iranian encouragement in wake of the summit held between Russia, Türkiye and Iran in July.

Kurdish Democratic Progressive Party politburo official Ahmed Sulaiman said they have called for dialogue with Bashar al-Assad's regime to “resolve the Kurdish issue for which we have strived for.”

However, the regime’s resorting to the military option “has complicated the scene.”

In an interview to Asharq Al-Awsat, Sulaiman acknowledged the need to “reassure” Türkiye that the situation in Syria is not a threat to its national security.

The Kurdish Democratic Progressive Party was formed in 1957. It has been striving politically for years to resolve the Kurdish issue as part of a comprehensive political solution in Syria. This lies in the transition to a pluralist democratic system that recognizes Kurds in the country and grants them their legitimate rights. Party officials have over the past 11 years of war held direct talks with regime officials to help reach their goals.

“Perhaps any breakthrough in relations between Ankara and Damascus will favor the Syrian regime above all else,” Sulaiman told Asharq Al-Awsat from Qamishli.

“We support having normal relations between Syria and neighboring countries, including Türkiye,” he added.

Contrary to what Turkish officials claim, the situation in Syria does not pose a threat to their national security, he went on to say.

At the same time, resolving the situation in Syria must not take place at the expense of the Syrian people, especially the Kurds, he stressed.

“We all know that Türkiye’s first and last demand is preventing the resolution of the Kurdish issue in Syria. Should Ankara reach understandings with Damascus, it will insist that the Kurds lose all their administrative and military gains and limit the power of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF),” said Sulaiman.

After the battles in Ain al-Arab in 2014, the occupation of Afrin in 2018 and Ras al-Ain and Tall Abyad in 2019, and the migration of thousands of Kurds to neighboring countries and Europe, Kurdish forces should have preserved their independent political decision-making to protect their cause, he remarked.

They should have kept a distance from regional and international meddling in Syria, he added.

Kurdish parties may have made tactical gains, but they squandered potential opportunities to resolve the Kurdish issue, he lamented. The issue is now at the mercy of regional and international interference in Syria.

“Therefore, any solution these international parties may reach over Syria will take place at the expense of the Kurdish people and their rights in the country because they are viewed as the weakest link and least influential on these parties,” he explained.

The Kurdish Democratic Progressive Party had since the eruption of the war been calling for direct negotiations and dialogue with the regime.

Sulaiman said: “We have called for dialogue with the regime to discuss possible solutions, especially regarding the Kurdish issue.”

“The regime, however, opted for the military solution and complicated the possibility of reaching a national solution,” he added.

“Even worse, it opened its arms wide for foreign meddling,” Sulaiman remarked.

Asked if the Progressive Party had held direct meetings with regime and government officials, he replied that such talks were held in Damascus.

The last of these meetings was held in April, revealed Sulaiman.

“We believe that dialogue with the regime demands united Kurdish ranks and a common position over the rights of the Kurdish people,” he went on to say.

“This is why our party visited Damascus. The talks focused on the mechanisms needed to open serious channels of dialogue and understand the regime’s position clearer and its vision of addressing the crisis and resolving the Kurdish issue in specific,” he stated.

“Resolving the Kurdish issue lies in Damascus. Without reaching this conviction, there can be no real solution to the issue in Syria,” he declared.

“We welcome the role played by the United Nations and international mediations, especially Russia’s influence through its close ties with the regime,” he said.

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Interviews

Goldrich to Asharq Al-Awsat: No US Withdrawal from Syria

US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Ethan Goldrich during the interview with Asharq Al-Awsat
US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Ethan Goldrich during the interview with Asharq Al-Awsat
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Goldrich to Asharq Al-Awsat: No US Withdrawal from Syria

US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Ethan Goldrich during the interview with Asharq Al-Awsat
US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Ethan Goldrich during the interview with Asharq Al-Awsat

Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Ethan Goldrich has told Asharq Al-Awsat that the US does not plan to withdraw its forces from Syria.

The US is committed to “the partnership that we have with the local forces that we work with,” he said.

Here is the full text of the interview.

Question: Mr. Goldrich, thank you so much for taking the time to sit with us today. I know you are leaving your post soon. How do you assess the accomplishments and challenges remaining?

Answer: Thank you very much for the chance to talk with you today. I've been in this position for three years, and so at the end of three years, I can see that there's a lot that we accomplished and a lot that we have left to do. But at the beginning of a time I was here, we had just completed a review of our Syria policy, and we saw that we needed to focus on reducing suffering for the people in Syria. We needed to reduce violence. We needed to hold the regime accountable for things that are done and most importantly, from the US perspective, we needed to keep ISIS from reemerging as a threat to our country and to other countries. At the same time, we also realized that there wouldn't be a solution to the crisis until there was a political process under resolution 2254, so in each of these areas, we've seen both progress and challenges, but of course, on ISIS, we have prevented the reemergence of the threat from northeast Syria, and we've helped deal with people that needed to be repatriated out of the prisons, and we dealt with displaced people in al-Hol to reduce the numbers there. We helped provide for stabilization in those parts of Syria.

Question: I want to talk a little bit about the ISIS situation now that the US troops are still there, do you envision a timeline where they will be withdrawn? Because there were some reports in the press that there is a plan from the Biden administration to withdraw.

Answer: Yeah. So right now, our focus is on the mission that we have there to keep ISIS from reemerging. So I know there have been reports, but I want to make clear that we remain committed to the role that we play in that part of Syria, to the partnership that we have with the local forces that we work with, and to the need to prevent that threat from reemerging.

Question: So you can assure people who are saying that you might withdraw, that you are remaining for the time being?

Answer: Yes, and that we remain committed to this mission which needs to continue to be pursued.

Question: You also mentioned the importance of humanitarian aid. The US has been leading on this. Are you satisfied with where you are today on the humanitarian front in Syria?

Answer: We remain committed to the role that we play to provide for humanitarian assistance in Syria. Of the money that was pledged in Brussels, we pledged $593 million just this past spring, and we overall, since the beginning of the conflict, have provided $18 billion both to help the Syrians who are inside of Syria and to help the refugees who are in surrounding countries. And so we remain committed to providing that assistance, and we remain keenly aware that 90% of Syrians are living in poverty right now, and that there's been suffering there. We're doing everything we can to reduce the suffering, but I think where we would really like to be is where there's a larger solution to the whole crisis, so Syrian people someday will be able to provide again for themselves and not need this assistance.

Question: And that's a perfect key to my next question. Solution in Syria. you are aware that the countries in the region are opening up to Assad again, and you also have the EU signaling overture to the Syrian regime and Assad. How do you deal with that?

Answer: For the United States, our policy continues to be that we will not normalize with the regime in Syria until there's been authentic and enduring progress on the goals of resolution 2254, until the human rights of the Syrian people are respected and until they have the civil and human rights that they deserve. We know other countries have engaged with the regime. When those engagements happen, we don't support them, but we remind the countries that are engaged that they should be using their engagements to push forward on the shared international goals under 2254, and that whatever it is that they're doing should be for the sake of improving the situation of the Syrian people.

Question: Let's say that all of the countries decided to talk to Assad, aren’t you worried that the US will be alienated in the process?

Answer: The US will remain true to our own principles and our own policies and our own laws, and the path for the regime in Syria to change its relationship with us is very clear, if they change the behaviors that led to the laws that we have and to the policies that we have, if those behaviors change and the circumstances inside of Syria change, then it's possible to have a different kind of relationship, but that's where it has to start.

Question: My last question to you before you leave, if you have to pick one thing that you need to do in Syria today, what is it that you would like to see happening today?

Answer: So there are a number of things, I think that will always be left and that there are things that we will try to do, to try to make them happen. We want to hold people accountable in Syria for things that have happened. So even today, we observed something called the International Day for victims of enforced disappearances, there are people that are missing, and we're trying to draw attention to the need to account for the missing people. So our step today was to sanction a number of officials who were responsible for enforced disappearances, but we also created something called the independent institution for missing persons, and that helps the families, in the non-political way, get information on what's happened. So I'd like to see some peace for the families of the missing people. I'd like to see the beginning of a political process, there hasn't been a meeting of the constitutional committee in two years, and I think that's because the regime has not been cooperating in political process steps. So we need to change that situation. And I would, of course, like it's important to see the continuation of the things that we were talking about, so keeping ISIS from reemerging and maintaining assistance as necessary in the humanitarian sphere. So all these things, some of them are ongoing, and some of them remain to be achieved. But the Syrian people deserve all aspects of our policy to be fulfilled and for them to be able to return to a normal life.