Shafaq News- Damascus
Syria's deputy defense minister for the easternregion denied Tuesday that a separate Kurdish military structure is beingestablished in Afrin, stating that recruitment of Kurdish youth into the SyrianArab Army remains voluntary and on an individual basis.
Brigadier General Samer Awso —also known by hisKurdish name Sipan Hamo— said discussions underway concern opening enlistmentto Kurdish youth from Afrin and Kurdish residents of Al-Hasakah province, notthe creation of an autonomous military body. Any recruits, he said, would beabsorbed into existing army formations rather than organized into a distinctunit.
Awso is a founding member of the People'sProtection Units (YPG), the Kurdish force that formed the military backbone ofthe Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the primary armed group controllingnortheastern Syria under a semi-autonomous administration. He was appointed tohis current post earlier this year as part of confidence-building measuresfollowing a January integration agreement between Damascus and the SDF.
The agreement, reached on January 30 after weeksof fighting in which Syrian government forces seized large swaths of SDF-heldterritory in the northeast, requires the full integration of SDF forces andinstitutions into the defense and interior ministries. It also covers thereturn of displaced populations and the handover of strategic assets, includingoil fields and airports.
Ahmad al-Hilali, spokesman for the presidentialteam overseeing the process, said a high-level meeting was held in Aleppoprovince on April 15 covering two core files: the return of displaced persons,and the modalities of integrating the SDF into Syrian state institutions.
The meeting followed a Damascus encounter onApril 14 between Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa and SDF commander MazloumAbdi, attended also by senior Kurdish political figure Ilham Ahmed, ForeignMinister Asaad al-Shaibani, and the presidential envoy. Al-Hilali said thetalks reaffirmed that integration is a national sovereignty track to be pursuedwithin state institutions and in a manner that preserves Syria's territorialunity.
