The Syrian government cancels participation in Paris meetings in protest against the “Hasakah Conference”
The Syrian government announced on Saturday that it was canceling its participation in the meetings scheduled to be held in Paris later this month with the PKK/YPG, also known as the SDF, in protest against the Hasakah conference held on Friday.
This came according to what the official Syrian news agency, SANA, reported on Saturday, citing a responsible government source, who considered the Hasakah conference an attempt to internationalize Syrian affairs and attract foreign intervention.
The conference was attended by Ilham Ahmed, a PKK/YPG policy representative, Kurdish cleric Murshid Mashuq al Khaznawi, and several tribal representatives and prominent religious figures in the region.
Also participating in the conference via video were Hikmat al Hijri, a Druze sheikh known for his separatist stance and incitement against international intervention in Syria, and Ghazal Ghazal, head of the Supreme Alawite Council in Syria.
A Syrian government official, whose name wasn’t mentioned by SANA, said, “Citizens’ right to peaceful assembly and constructive dialogue is protected, provided it’s within the framework of a comprehensive national project that embraces the unity of Syria’s land, people, and sovereignty”.
In response to the Hasakah Conference’s call for the establishment of a decentralized state and the drafting of a constitution that guarantees ethnic, religious, and cultural pluralism.
The Syrian official source emphasized that the form of the state won’t be determined through factional agreements, but rather through a permanent constitution approved by popular referendum, ensuring the equal participation of all citizens.
The Syrian official considered the conference not to represent a comprehensive national framework, but rather a fragile alliance comprising parties harmed by the Syrian people’s victory and the fall of the former regime (late 2024), as well as some parties attempting to monopolize the representation of Syria’s components by force of fate.
He continued, “These parties and entities, resort to such conferences to escape future obligations and to deny the principles of the Syrian state, which is based on one army, one government, and one country”.
He strongly condemned the hosting of separatist figures involved in hostile acts, and held the SDF and its leadership fully responsible for the repercussions of this.
The conference was deemed an attempt to internationalize Syrian affairs, invite foreign intervention, and reimpose sanctions, for which the SDF bears the legal, political, and historical consequences.
The official source in the Syrian government also confirmed that this conference dealt a blow to the ongoing negotiation efforts (with the terrorist SDF organization), and accordingly, the government won’t participate in any subsequent meetings scheduled in Paris, and won’t sit at the negotiating table with any party seeking to revive the era of the former regime under any name or cover.
He called on international mediators to transfer all negotiations to Damascus, as it’s the legitimate and national address for dialogue among Syrians.
