By Jana Choukeir and Emma Farge
DUBAI/GENEVA (Reuters) – The Kurdish-led group which governs northeast Syria on Friday rejected a constitutional declaration issued by the new Islamist leadership in Damascus and called for it to be rewritten.
The declaration, issued on Thursday, is intended to form the basis of a five-year interim period under President Ahmed al-Sharaa, a Sunni Islamist who led the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad in December in a lightning offensive capping 14 years of civil war.
It upheld the central role of Islamic law and provided for freedom of opinion. But the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Council said it did not go far enough in protecting the rights of Syria’s diverse communities.
In Geneva meanwhile, the United Nations’ special envoy for Syria urged the new authorities in Damascus to forge an inclusive transitional government. He also called for an investigation into recent sectarian violence in which hundreds of people were killed.
“Syria now stands at a pivotal moment,” Envoy Geir Pedersen said in a statement read out by a spokesperson on the 14th anniversary of the start of an uprising against Assad that turned into all-out war.
During the conflict, Kurdish authorities in northeast Syria set up an autonomous system after decades of marginalisation under Assad family rule. They fear the new leadership in Damascus will roll back many of their rights – including teaching the Kurdish language in school and having women in senior governing posts.
In a written statement on Friday, the SDC “completely rejected” Sharaa’s constitutional declaration, saying it “reproduced authoritarianism in a new form” and granted the executive unchecked powers.
It called for the decree to be rewritten to distribute powers more fairly and adopt a decentralised ruling system.
“Any constitutional declaration must be the result of genuine national consensus, not a project imposed by one party,” the council said.
The SDC is the political leadership of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, which signed a deal with the Damascus government on Monday to join Syria’s new state institutions and hand over key border crossings, oil fields and an airport to government control.
Implementation is due by the end of the year, but the accord does not specify how SDF’s military operation will be integrated into Syria’s defence ministry.
U.N. envoy Pedersen said in his statement he hoped Sharaa’s
declaration would move Syria toward restoring the rule of law and an orderly transition.
Sharaa has promised to run Syria in an inclusive way but has been grappling with the aftermath of a wave of sectarian killings in the coastal region blamed on fighters aligned with his government.
Pedersen called for an independent investigation into what he described as the “appalling violence”.
“In this regard, a climate of distrust and fear could endanger the entire transition,” he said.
(Reporting by Jana Choukeir in Dubai and Emma Farge in Geneva, Editing by Angus MacSwan)
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