French minister urges Kurdish inclusion in Syria’s future

The rights of Syria’s Kurds must be preserved during the transitional period, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on Thursday after a meeting with the powerful Kurdish leader Mazloum Abdi in Iraq.

Mr Barrot began a Middle East tour with a trip in Iraq, where he discussed with officials ways to strengthen bilateral ties and lay the groundwork for two key conferences on regional peace, the Third Baghdad Conference, which has been organised by Paris and Baghdad since 2021, and the second to be held in New York in June, on the implementation of a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. France is co-organising the event with Saudi Arabia

During the two-day trip, Mr Barrot met Iraq's Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al Sudani, as well as members of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan regional government.

During his visit to Kurdistan, he met Mr Abdi, the commander of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) along with top officials from the Kurdish Autonomous Administration in north-east Syria.

Mr Barrot posted a photo of the meeting on X, with the comment: “Ten years of fighting side by side against Daesh [ISIS].

“The rights and interests of the Kurds must be fully taken into account in the Syrian transition!”

The Kurdish issue has been one of the most complex in the country since the Turkish-backed Hayat Tahrir Al Sham, an armed group formerly affiliated with Al Qaeda, led the rebel offensive in December that toppled Bashar Al Assad and installed the new government in Damascus.

Hawar News Agency said the meeting focused on “ways to support political and security stability in the region [North and East Syria], enhance dialogue among Syrian parties, and discuss France’s role in supporting political settlement efforts”.

It added that the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria seeks to “garner international support for the Democratic Autonomous Administration project and strengthen their involvement in the Syrian political process”.

HTS is seeking to disarm the country's several factions and militias, which operated during the years of the civil war, and offering some of them places in a new army and other security organisations it is setting up. President Ahmad Al Shara, who is also the HTS leader, has pledged to unify the country since his appointment by former rebel factions in January.

In March, Mr Al Sahara and Mr Abdi signed a briefly worded agreement at the presidential palace in Damascus to bring the east under the control of the new authorities and end hostilities in the resource-rich eastern part of the country. But how the deal will be implemented has yet to be negotiated and there is no guarantee the process would even succeed.

At the conclusion of his Iraq visit, Mr Barrot will head to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia for three days.

The French Foreign Ministry said Mr Barrot will also discuss preparations for another international conference, to be held in New York in June, on the implementation of a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. France is co-organising the event with Saudi Arabia.

French President Emmanuel Macron this month announced France's intention to recognise a Palestinian state as part of a broader diplomatic drive aimed at securing regional peace and setting up Arab diplomatic relations with Israel.

“What we want to trigger is a series of other recognitions” of a Palestinian state, “but also the recognition of Israel by states that today do not do so”, Mr Macron said last week.