Syrian Kurds Say They'll Declare Federal Region in Syria

BEIRUT— A powerful Syrian Kurdish political party announced plans Wednesday to declare a federal region in northern Syria, a model it hopes can be applied to the entire country. The idea was promptly dismissed by Turkey and also the Syrian government...
Syrian Kurds Say They'll Declare Federal Region in Syria
Kurds fighters during clashes with ISIS on April 4, 2015, in the outskirts of the north-western Syrian town of Tal Tamr, north of Hasakeh. UYGAR ONDER SIMSEK/AFP/Getty Images
|Updated:

BEIRUT—A powerful Syrian Kurdish political party announced plans Wednesday to declare a federal region in northern Syria, a model it hopes can be applied to the entire country. The idea was promptly dismissed by Turkey and also the Syrian government team at U.N.-brokered peace talks underway in Geneva.

The declaration was expected to be made at the end of a Kurdish conference that began Wednesday in the town of Rmeilan in Syria’s northern Hassakeh province.

The development comes as the Damascus government and Western- and Saudi-backed rebels are holding peace talks with a U.N. envoy in Geneva on ways to resolve the country’s devastating civil war, which this week entered its sixth year.

The main Syrian Kurdish group, the Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its military wing, the People’s Protection Units, has so far been excluded from those talks so as not to anger Turkey, despite Russia’s insistence that they be part of the negotiations. Ankara views the group as a terrorist organization.

Kurdish fighters of the YPG in the town of Ein Eissa, north of Raqqa city, Syria, on June 23, 2015. (The Kurdish fighters of the People's Protection Units via AP, File)
Kurdish fighters of the YPG in the town of Ein Eissa, north of Raqqa city, Syria, on June 23, 2015. The Kurdish fighters of the People's Protection Units via AP, File