Syrian minister rejects Kurdish-led SDF’s proposal for own military bloc

Syria’s new defense minister has stated that maintaining their own bloc within the more comprehensively integrated Syrian armed forces would not be acceptable for Kurdish fighters supported by the US.

Murhaf Abu Qasra told the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) that the Kurdish-led organization was putting off the complex issue in a statement to Reuters news agency on Sunday.

The SDF, which has carved out a semi-autonomous region through 14 years of conflict, has been in talks with the new Damascus administration led by former rebels who resurrected President Bashar al-Assad on December 8th.

According to SDF commander Mazloum Abdi, who also served as Mazloum Kobani, one of their main demands is a decentralized administration, saying in an interview with Saudi Arabia’s Asharq News that the organization was open to integrating with the Ministry of Defense but as a “military bloc” and without dissolving.

On Sunday, Abu Qasra rejected that suggestion.

We claim that they would be distributed militarily within the Defence Ministry, according to Abu Qasra, who was appointed defense minister on December 21.

However, such a bloc within a large institution as the Defence Ministry is unacceptable for them to continue to operate as a military bloc.

One of the minister’s priorities since taking office has been integrating Syria’s myriad anti-al-Assad factions into a unified command structure.

However, doing so with the SDF has proved challenging. The group is seen as a key ally for ISIL (ISIS), but neighboring Turkiye views it as a threat to national security due to its banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) as its main ally.

Abu Qasra claimed he had met with the SDF leaders but that they had been “procrastinating” during discussions about their integration. He added that the Syrian state had a right to enlist them in the Defence Ministry like other former rebel groups.

About two weeks after Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the rebel group he belongs to, led the offensive that overthrew al-Assad, he was appointed to the transitional government.

The minister stated that he hoped to complete the transitional government’s transitional process by March 1, when some senior military figures are expected to take over.

When asked how he had responded to criticism that a transitional council shouldn’t set up such vast military installations or make such appointments, he claimed “security issues” had given the new state precedence.

“We are in a race against time and every day makes a difference”, he said.

The new administration was also criticised over its decision to give some foreigners, including Egyptians and Jordanians, ranks in the new military.