Kurds to Seek Syria's Name Change - Representative

06:25 GMT, 3 March 2019

ERBIL, Iraq (Sputnik) - Kurds, during the work of the Syrian constitutional committee, will push for a change of the Syrian Arab Republic’s name, so that it will not contain any national or religious affiliation, a Kurdish delegate to the Erbil forum on security and sovereignty in the Middle East has told Sputnik.

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"In particular, the country’s official name — the Syrian Arab Republic — should be changed to the ‘Republic of Syria,’ without mentioning any specific national or religious affiliation. In addition, a new system for Syria should be based on democratic principles and be decentralised, as proposed by the Syrian Democratic Council", the Kurdish delegate said.

The creation of the committee, which will be tasked with rewriting Syria's main laws, was agreed upon during a Syrian National Dialogue Congress in the Russian resort city of Sochi in January 2018. The body is expected to include the representatives of the Syrian government, opposition, and civil society.

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In February, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said that the final lists of the committee's members were still being agreed upon, with the United Nations seeking to replace six candidacies. The deputy minister expressed hope that the process of drafting the lists would be finalised as soon as possible.

The Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and its political wing, the Syrian Democratic Council, with the US-led international coalition’s support, control huge swathes of Syrian territory to the east of the Euphrates River. The Kurds proclaimed a Democratic Federation of Northern Syria (DFNS) in the region that is recognised by neither Damascus nor the world community.