{"id":30544,"date":"2019-01-25T11:24:29","date_gmt":"2019-01-25T11:24:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=30544"},"modified":"2019-01-25T11:24:29","modified_gmt":"2019-01-25T11:24:29","slug":"top-kurdish-commander-syria-anti-daesh-forces-must-keep-special-status","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=30544","title":{"rendered":"Top Kurdish commander: Syria anti-Daesh forces must keep \u2018special status\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<div itemprop=\"articleBody\" data-io-article-url=\"http:\/\/www.arabnews.com\/node\/1441691\/middle-east\" readability=\"49\">\n<p>\nHASAKAH, Syria: Any deal between Syria\u2019s Kurds and Damascus should respect the \u201cspecial status\u201d of Kurdish-led forces who fought the Daesh group, a top Kurdish commander of those forces said.<br \/>\u201cAny political agreement should include the special status\u201d of the Syrian Democratic Forces after they fought Daesh \u201con behalf of all humanity and even the Syrian army,\u201d SDF commander-in-chief Mazloum Kobani said.<br \/>\u201cThis is our red line and we will not concede this\u201d in ongoing talks with the Damascus regime, he said in an exclusive interview on Thursday.<br \/>The SDF control around a third of Syria after expelling militants from a large northeastern swathe of the war-torn country with backing from the US-led coalition.<br \/>The Kurdish-led alliance \u201cprotected northeastern Syria &#8230; liberated these areas, and have the right to continue protecting the region,\u201d said Kobani, who was speaking near the northeastern city of Hasakah.<br \/>President Bashar Assad\u2019s government has gained ground against rebels and militants with key Russian backing since 2015, and now controls almost two-thirds of the country.<br \/>It is determined to reassert its authority over SDF-held areas, which make up the lion\u2019s share of the rest.<br \/>But after years of marginalization, the Kurds are determined to keep some of the autonomy they gained during the eight-year war.<br \/>The SDF could \u201cagree to be part of the national army of a future Syria, but only on the condition they keep their special status,\u201d Kobani said.<br \/>Damascus has rejected self-rule in northeastern Syria, but Kurdish leaders started talks with the government in July in a bid to seek some form of decentralization.<br \/>\u201cThe discussions are ongoing but have not yet reached any positive result,\u201d he said.<br \/>The regime \u201ckeeps on thinking it can go back to the way it was before 2011. It still hopes it can take military control of the whole region.\u201d<br \/>\u201cIt needs &#8230; to understand that is impossible.\u201d<br \/>Kobani said the SDF were however prepared to \u201cprotect the Syrian border and the unity of Syrian territory.\u201d<br \/>And they would \u201caccept the results of centralized elections if they occurred.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>HASAKAH, Syria: Any deal between Syria\u2019s Kurds and Damascus should respect the \u201cspecial status\u201d of Kurdish-led forces who fought the Daesh group, a top Kurdish commander of those forces said.\u201cAny political agreement should include the special status\u201d of the Syrian Democratic Forces after they fought Daesh \u201con behalf of all humanity and even the Syrian&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":30545,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30544\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}