The US-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) called on Damascus on Saturday to recognize the autonomy of Kurdish areas in the northeast of Syria, following the announcement of the liberation of the country from the Islamic State terrorist group (IS, banned in Russia)
DAMASCUS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 23rd March, 2019) The US-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) called on Damascus on Saturday to recognize the autonomy of Kurdish areas in the northeast of Syria, following the announcement of the liberation of the country from the Islamic State terrorist group (IS, banned in Russia).On Saturday, the SDF released a statement that the last remaining pocket of the IS terrorist enclave in Syria's eastern village of Baghuz had been defeated, marking the end its territorial caliphate that the organization established in 2014 amid a civil war in Syria.
"We call on the central government in Damascus to give preference to the process of dialogue and start practical steps to reach a political solution based on the recognition of elected self-governing administrations in northeast Syria and to accept the Syrian democratic forces," the statement said.
The SDF also said that although the physical caliphate had been defeated, it acknowledged that IS would continue operating through sleeper cells. Therefore, the SDF called on international coalition forces to continue their military and security campaigns in what it said was the beginning of a new phase in the fight against terrorism.
As the Syrian conflict winds down, both the Syrian government and multiple international players who became involved in the complex years-long war in the country are shifting focus to the issue of resettlement and reconstruction of the severely battered nation. The SDF, whose involvement in the conflict has been instrumental in defeating IS, now seeks to settle an age-old territorial claim in Syria's northeast and establish autonomy for the Kurd-majority in the region.
