Kurdish-led parties are preparing to declare a unified region in areas under their control in northern Syria, representatives said Wednesday, as they push a federal model for governing the country. The move, which would expand an already existing system of self-administration, is likely to anger Turkey which is wary of any bid by Syrian Kurds to solidify their autonomy and their control of territory.
Kurdish groups appear to be pushing for an alternative solution to Syria's five-year conflict after being excluded from ongoing peace talks in Geneva.
More than 150 delegates from Kurdish, Arab, Assyrian and other parties met Wednesday in the town of Rmeilan, in Syria's north-eastern Hasakeh province.
The meeting adjourned in the early evening and will reconvene on Thursday when a decision is expected to be announced, an AFP journalist attending the conference said.
"The gathering will try to develop a new ruling system in northern Syria," said Sihanuk Dibo, a consultant to Syria's leading Kurdish political group, the Democratic Union Party (PYD). "All the suggestions are now heading towards federalism," he told AFP from the conference. Delegates proposed "a democratic federation as the only way to guarantee the rights of all people," according to a draft of the proposal obtained by AFP.
"We will decide the borders for these areas and their prerogatives," the draft said.
PYD official Ibrahim Ibrahim said it was a model for the whole of Syria. "The federal system in northern Syria is a part of what we consider a necessity to adopt a federal system in all Syria one day," he said. In such a scenario, he said, "a new constitution will determine the relation between the federal districts and the centre in Damascus."
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