IDPS from Serêkaniyê demanded the opening of roads and the resolution of security issues.
The Serêkaniyê IDPs Committee stated that they have asked Syrian interim government officials to resolve security issues in the city, open roads, remove checkpoints and evacuate residents, as well as improve the level of services in the area.
A meeting was held in Hasakah yesterday (Tuesday). The meeting was attended by Hasakah Governor Nureddin Ahmed, the Internal Security Forces commander, members of the interim government team to monitor the implementation of the January 29 Agreement, and representatives of the Serêkaniyê Migrants Committee.
Regarding the content of the meeting, the public relations officer of the Serekaniye Migrants Committee, Ciwan Iso, told our agency that many issues were discussed in the meeting, such as ensuring security and stability in the region, evicting illegal occupants from their homes and returning the homes to their owners, facilitating the return of those who came from other provinces after 2019, providing basic services, ensuring the participation of displaced people and indigenous people in the management of their areas, stopping demographic change and hate speech .
Iso stated that work and coordination will continue until the situation is resolved and all demands are met, and noted that the committee will be ready to return if these steps are taken.
Ciwan Iso noted that the issue of security was a major topic of discussion, and the committee called for resolving all security issues, opening roads and removing checkpoints, evacuating residents, and improving services in the region.
Two weeks ago, we reported that this is the first time both Turkey and Iraq appear to be seriously pushing the Syria route as a connecting hub that would effectively bypass the KRG. We also reported in late January that a key strategic concern for the Barzani-led KRG authorities is that, with the integration of the SDF, the Hasakah corridor could allow Turkey and Iraq to bypass the KRG and significantly weaken its trade and geostrategic leverage.
But there is more to it. This is also the historic route, dating back to Ottoman times, so its underlying feasibility is already well established. It is better suited to rail corridors, and likely much cheaper and quicker to build given the topography. It is also politically attractive to both Turkey and Iraq because it reduces their dependence on the KRG. The recent episode in which KRG Prime Minister Masrour Barzani tried to impose preconditions on Iraqi oil exports through the KRG pipeline to Turkey’s Ceyhan port will likely further strengthen Baghdad’s incentive to revive the Mosul-Qamishli-Mardin route.
On 8 December 2024, after enduring more than a decade of protracted struggle and civil war, the dictatorship of Bashar Al-Assad finally collapsed following an offensive by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). The emerging transitional government has pledged to uphold the human and civil rights of cultural minorities. However, the threat of single-party, theocratic rule is already beginning to unfold. Meanwhile, the Kurdish led Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, (DAANES), often called ‘Rojava’, is under attack by Turkish armed proxies, the so-called Syrian National Army (SNA).
The DAANES provides a beacon of hope for Syria’s future. Galvanised around principles of ecology, cultural pluralism, grassroots democracy and economic cooperativism, women led radical self-government has been practised there for over a decade. A popular coalition of autonomously organised Kurds, Arabs and other minorities called the SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces) defends the region. Through their remarkable collaboration, we can see that Syria’s fate is not yet sealed. The Syrian people themselves hold the power and agency to shape their future along secular, democratic and ecological lines.
After the Syrian uprisings of 2011, Kurdish people expelled the Assad regime from several Kurdish areas, declaring an autonomous territory. Since 2012, this autonomous administration has implemented a social revolution inspired by the ideas of democratic confederalism proposed by Abdullah Öcalan, the imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The main principles that guide this project are women’s liberation, social ecology and stateless democracy. This vision is similar to [US-based social theorist] Murray Bookchin’s proposal of libertarian municipalism, and indeed Öcalan was inspired by Bookchin’s ideas.
With the rise of ISIS in 2014, Kurds fought back to defend their lives and land. After the historic resistance of Kobane, Kurdish fighters became the leading partner of the US-led international coalition against the caliphate.
Once liberated from ISIS’s fascist theocracy, many Arab majority regions integrated into the DAANES’s confederal system. New communes and regional councils were organised, as well as local, autonomous military councils. Ethnic and religious minorities such as Assyrians, Armenians, Syriacs and Yazidis were also called to build their own self-defence forces.
The most significant development within the DAANES is the women’s revolution. Women have their own military forces, with the women’s units leading the war against ISIS. Women’s organisations such as Kongra Star and the Zenobia Congress spearhead women’s rights and reclaim their centrality in history, politics and society. Politically, there is a system of ‘co-presidency’, with one man and one woman sharing leadership in all social and political structures. Women-led economic cooperatives ensure economic autonomy. These projects challenge the patriarchal order not only of Kurdish and Arab societies but of the entire world.
As the war against ISIS successfully defeated the caliphate in 2018, people wished for peaceful solutions to the question of a democratic Syria. However, at this time, Turkey entered the conflict, supporting various Islamist forces. Nursing ambitions of a neo-Ottoman empire, Turkish president Erdoğan has invaded northern Syria to expand Turkish borders and destroy Kurds as an oppositional force.
HTS’s 2024 offensive was carried out in coordination with Turkish proxy forces rebranded as the Syrian National Army (SNA). These proxies are a collection of Islamist groups trained, armed and supplied by Turkey, including documented ex-ISIS fighters. While HTS took Assad regime-held territory, the SNA targeted the DAANES. The Turkish army aids them with artillery fire, drone strikes and bombs dropped using Nato F-16 jets.
Turkish proxies took control of regions where refugee camps sheltered more than 150,000 people, sparking a new humanitarian crisis. In the cold nights of December, long convoys of people were driven to the roads, but SNA raids, kidnappings and summary executions blocked their escape. Those who managed to get away went to the DAANES, where local committees and humanitarian organisations such as Heyva Sor do everything they can to receive them. People are sharing already scarce resources to meet primary needs like shelter, food, blankets and medical attention.
In the east, Turkish proxies attack Manbij, an Arab-majority city that is part of the autonomous administration. The attacks come with armoured vehicles, drones, and warplanes, making it difficult for the SDF to stop their advance. After several attacks, a ceasefire was negotiated between the US and Turkey involving SDF withdrawal from some areas. Turkish proxy groups have robbed and looted whatever they can, sparking local protests and strikes demanding the return of the SDF.
ISIS is also becoming a severe problem. The regime’s collapse created a window of opportunity for the caliphate to reemerge. ISIS cells have raided abandoned weapon depots of the Syrian army and are again expanding their influence. They now threaten to release thousands of their fighters from prison, which would be catastrophic, not just for Syria and the Middle East but for the whole world.
The people of Rojava are facing Syria’s new situation with loyalty to their democratic principles. Their main priority has been to assist refugees from the Shehba and Aleppo countryside, relocating families and improvising refugee camps. On a diplomatic level, there are ongoing talks with HTS and many other Syrian and international forces to negotiate the DAANES’ role in the new Syria. Official buildings of the DAANES are already waving the Syrian independence flag, calling for a democratic and federal republic in Syria. Many Arab tribal leaders within the DAANES also make statements supporting the SDF. Delegations of ethnic minorities, including Assyrians, Armenians and Druze, have recently been in discussion with the DAANES and have issued statements calling for a federal Syria.
Women’s liberation remains a burning issue for the democratic forces. The Syrian Women’s Council held a major press conference to highlight the role of women in the Syrian revolution and warn of the risks that fundamentalist forces create for women’s freedom. International groups and Rojava solidarity committees are organising protest actions, denouncing Turkish aggression and calling for defence of the revolution.
The Assad regime has fallen, and we should celebrate that. But if we really wish for a true revolution in Syria, much work still needs to be done.
PYD Co-Chair Xerîb Hiso talks about the visit of the Syrian Transitional Government delegation and a joint statement.
🎙️ "There will be other steps."
🎙️ "We talked about the diversity of Syria."
🎙️ "All political parties will be visited."
🎙️ "The law on parties will be issued."
When Mazloum Abdi and Ilham Ahmed sat across the table from Ahmad al-Sharaa and Asaad al-Shaibani in Damascus on 16 April, the encounter was remarkable for what it signified. Discussions centered on completing the integration process into state institutions, a formulation that would have been almost unthinkable in the political vocabulary of Kurdish politics previously.
It is now the operative language of Kurdish political engagement, and it is not incidental. It marks a structural transformation in how Kurdish politics organizes itself, legitimizes itself, and projects itself, both within Syria and beyond it.
The analytical category adequate to this transformation is not pragmatism in its ordinary sense. It is a strategic shift from the framework of resistance to that of resilience, framed not as a retreat from political ambition but as a fundamental reorientation of the political strategy through which the ambition is pursued.
For much of the post-2011 period, Kurdish politics in Syria operated within a resistance paradigm. Resistance, as a political logic, derived its coherence from a clear adversarial structure: it defined itself against a state structure, an occupying force, and a hegemonic order it refused to recognize.
The framework required an outsider, a position of counter-sovereignty from which power could be contested. The Rojava (Syrian Kurdistan) project, at its height, embodied this logic with considerable clarity: autonomous governance, parallel institutions, and a declared exception to the Syrian state structure and its logic of ethnic and sectarian domination.
That paradigm has been structurally exhausted, not by ideological failure, but by the transformation of the conditions that sustained it. A dramatic escalation saw Syrian Interim Government forces retake large swathes of territory in the northeast, forcing the SDF to accept a truce and a wide-ranging agreement that brings Kurdish civilian and military authorities under central state control.
The progressive withdrawal of American military presence from base after base across northeastern Syria, the last of which was evacuated on 16 April, removed the external scaffolding that had made armed autonomy viable. The resistance frame presupposed a degree of strategic independence that the current conjuncture no longer provides.
The armed resistance as the primary register of Kurdish political identity has ceased to be operative, not because the underlying grievances have been resolved, but because the structural conditions for sustaining it have collapsed. What remains is the question of what comes next.
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Resilience, as a political category, is not the mirror image of resistance. It does not simply replace refusal with accommodation. Rather, it describes a mode of political survival and projection that operates from within transformed conditions rather than against them. In so doing, it converts presence into leverage and an institutional foothold into future possibility.
The distinction is significant. Resistance politics requires an outside from which to operate; resilience politics works from within. Resistance derives legitimacy from refusal; resilience derives it from recognition. Resistance is coherent when the adversary is clearly defined; resilience becomes necessary when the political field is multipolar, contested, and in flux, as Syria’s clearly is.
The 29 January 2026 agreement and the subsequent April 16 meeting are most coherently read as the formalization of a resilience logic that had been developing for some time. The agreement included phased integration of military and administrative structures into state institutions, the deployment of security forces to the centers of Hasakah and Qamishli, and the transfer of civil and government institutions, as well as border crossings, to state control.
Evaluated through a resistance frame, this appears as a territorial and institutional cutback. Evaluated through a resilience frame, it appears as a strategic insertion into the structures that will govern Syrian political life, structures within which Kurdish rights, representation, and cultural presence can be negotiated and, potentially, consolidated.
The shift from resistance to resilience does not occur in an ideological vacuum. The political philosophy shaped by Ocalan, often read as categorically anti-state, provides, in fact, an ideological resource for this transition, though it requires careful reading rather than mechanical application.
His foundational critique was directed not at statehood as such but at a specific historical form: the nation-state and its logic of ethnic homogenization, centralized sovereignty, and social subordination. The theory of democratic confederalism was a rejection of that form, not a rejection of political organization altogether.
A state that decentralizes authority, guarantees cultural plurality, and distributes political voice across communities sits closer to the notion of a democratic nation than that of an ethno-nationalist one.
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Therefore, the integration into a reformed, pluralist state structure is theoretically not incompatible with the AANES (Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria) ideological framework. The Kurdish political leadership draws on it to present integration as principled rather than merely practical.
However, the current conjuncture demands precisely a politics that is both principled enough to maintain political coherence and pragmatic enough to survive.
Perhaps the most analytically significant dimension of the current shift, and the one most underanalysed, is the question of legitimacy. Resilience politics is not only reactive; it also generates its own productive dynamics, most visible at the international level.
At the Munich meeting in February, discussions focused on integration and ensuring the rights of all Syrian components within the political process, foremost among them the Kurds and Druze. The US Secretary of State affirmed that integration and the implementation of agreements sit at the top of the administration’s priorities.
The significance of this moment lies not in American endorsement per se, but in what it signals: Kurdish political actors, Mazloum Abdi and Ilham Ahmed, are being recognized as legitimate interlocutors in the architecture of a post-Assad Syria, seated at the same table as Syrian foreign ministers and American secretaries of state. This is a qualitatively different form of international presence than the tactical recognition extended to the SDF as a counter-ISIS military partner.
At the national level, the return of displaced Kurdish families from Afrin (Efrîn) and Ras al-Ayn (Serekaniyê), however partial and contested, and the appointment of a Kurdish mayor in Hasakah (Hesîçê) represent the first institutional materialization of Kurdish political presence within the Syrian state.
These are fragile and reversible gains. But they are gains of a different order from anything achievable through continued armed resistance: they operate through the state rather than against it, and they generate a logic of expectation and accountability that pure resistance cannot.
The resistance paradigm served as an interpretive lens for Kurdish politics through decades of repression, armed struggle, and the extraordinary experiment of Rojava. It no longer captures what is happening.
Resilience, as a political logic, not as a moral verdict, better describes the current configuration: a movement that has absorbed significant structural losses, recalibrated its strategic horizon, and repositioned itself within the institutions of a state it neither controls nor fully trusts, in pursuit of political objectives that armed autonomy could no longer secure.
Whether this repositioning succeeds will depend on the Syrian state’s capacity to honor its commitments, the continued engagement of international guarantors, and Kurdish political actors’ ability to translate institutional presence into durable rights.
What is already clear is that the political framework has changed. Resistance was the language of refusal, while resilience is the language of endurance and, potentially, of transformation from within.
Dr Yunus Abakay is a researcher at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter. His research focuses on Middle East politics, with a specialisation in Kurdish politics and identity.
The Rabia border crossing has been reopened after 13 years of closure
Iraq on Monday officially opened the Rabia border crossing with Syria, which had been closed to trade for more than 13 years due to security concerns and the rise of ISIS.
"After nearly 13 years of closure, the gate has been officially opened today," Omar Waili, head of the Iraqi Border Gate Authority, told a news conference in front of the Rabia gate in Nineveh province.
Iraq and Syria share a common border of more than 600 kilometers, connected by three main gates (Qaim, Walid and Rabia). With the opening of the Rabia gate, all border gates between the two countries are open. The Iraqi government views Rabia as a strategic gateway because it connects Iraq to Syria and Turkey and is an important part of the "Road to Development" project. The strategic project, which includes 1,200 kilometers of railways and highways to connect the Gulf countries in the south with Turkey in the north.
Mohammed Haris, a member of the Nineveh provincial council, said the opening of the gate will encourage trade movement, citizen movement, attract investment and increase public revenues. The Rabia gate was closed in 2014 after the rise of ISIS and the control of the Iraqi-Syrian border areas. Although ISIS was defeated in Iraq in 2017 and Syria in 2019, the gate was only used for humanitarian work and the passage of UN aid.
Ehmed Hilali: The Qamishli meeting to unify the courts was fruitless
The spokesperson for the Presidential Team for the follow-up to the January 29 agreement with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Ehmed Hilali, spoke to Rudaw.
In an interview with Nalin Hesen, Ahmed Hilali revealed that their efforts to unify the judicial institutions in the city of Qamishlo have not been successful. El-Halali said that the government delegation presented its plan, but this proposal was rejected by officials at the Qamishlo Courthouse.
Rudaw: What is your comment on the news that says the Qamishli meeting on April 20, 2026 regarding the unification of judicial institutions did not produce any results?
Ahmed Hilali: After a long meeting with the Governor of Al-Hasakah, Nureddin Ahmed, and in the presence of the directors and judges of the judicial councils, we went with them to report to the Ministry of Justice for the handover of the Al-Hasakah Courthouse.
The Attorney General of the Republic asked the judges to begin their work.
After witnessing positive developments in Al-Hasakah, we headed to the city of Qamishli and met once again with the judges and staff of the judicial councils affiliated with the SDF.
The Attorney General of the Republic explained to them the work plan of the Ministry of Justice, which included the following points:
1- Handing over the buildings to the Ministry of Justice in accordance with the December 29 agreement, which states that the Syrian government must receive all the facilities.
2- Receiving lists of employees and judges of the Autonomous Administration so that they can be integrated into the judicial institution according to their expertise, scientific skills and experience.
Unfortunately, despite our repeated requests, the lists have not been sent to us yet.
3- During this period, the judges will begin their work alongside the administrative judges until the legal situation is resolved in accordance with the Syrian Judicial Authority Law.
Rudaw: Is it true that the government delegation has demanded the full handover of the Qamishli court and the abolition of the judiciary under the Autonomous Administration?
Ahmed Hilali: We have repeatedly made it clear in Arabic and Kurdish to all the employees of the "courts of justice" that we will not abandon any of their talents. We have also spoken to them about the possibility of their admission to the Supreme Judicial Council in a special course that prepares them for the position of judge. Presidential decrees are issued for their appointment. The situation of lawyers is also being resolved by organizing their work and simplifying their membership procedures in the Bar Association. After we presented our plan, we were surprised that those in the Courthouse rejected the idea of handing over the building and refusing the return of the judges to their offices and work without any legitimate reason. Some legal entities affiliated with the Autonomous Administration tried to ease the obstacles and intervene positively, but their efforts were rejected by another part that insisted on an indefinite postponement.
Rudaw: Does the presidential delegation have a clear timeline for the unification process? And what are its main stages?
Ehmed Hilali: Due to these circumstances, we cannot set a specific time schedule.
Rudaw: Will a unified justice model be adopted, or is there a possibility of preserving some regional characteristics?
Ahmed Hilali: There are no special features in the Ministry of Justice. The Ministry of Justice is sovereign and it is unacceptable that it is not based on a single style throughout the geography of Syria. Cultural and educational uniqueness and the use of the talents of the people of the region are protected. One law, one army, one flag, one state, this is the agreed border.
There is no alternative to the December 29 agreement, which includes the handover of buildings to the government and the work to integrate SDF institutions into Syrian state institutions.
Ilham Ehmed shared information about the Damascus meeting and integration
Co-chair of the Autonomous Administration's Foreign Relations Department, Ilham Ehmed, spoke to ANHA about the content of the meeting they held in Damascus with Ehmed El Sheri and integration efforts.
Regarding the meeting held in Damascus on April 15 between the Commander-in-Chief of the SDF, Mazloum Abdi, the Co-Head of the Foreign Relations Department of the Autonomous Administration, Ilham Ahmed, and the Head of the Syrian Interim Government, Ahmed Al-Shari, the Co-Head of the Foreign Relations Department of the Autonomous Administration, Ilham Ahmed, spoke to ANHA about the level of integration efforts, current obstacles and difficulties.
THE DECISION WILL BE MADE FROM EDUCATION
Ilham Ahmed noted that the meeting in Damascus focused on the obstacles to the implementation of the integration process. Both sides (the Autonomous Administration and Damascus) are making efforts to remove the obstacles.
The Co-Chair of the Foreign Relations Department stated that one of the issues of the meeting was the education system, where students' certificates have not yet been approved, and said: "A lot of time has passed since the agreement of January 29, but this issue has not yet been resolved. We agreed that the Minister of Education and the Minister of Higher Education will soon visit Hasakah province to establish a mechanism and finalize this issue. Also, meetings will be held and decisions will be made regarding the system and language of instruction in the future."
Ilham Ehmed stated that so far, the administrative system has only been responsible for the management of health and education issues, and that the managements that have not yet been designated will be designated as soon as possible. A new mechanism will be established for this issue as well, so that the responsibility in institutions can be ended.
INTEGRATION PROCESS
Ilham Ehmed reminded that some steps have been taken within the framework of integration, but the process is progressing slowly.
Ilham Ehmed stated that positive steps have been taken in terms of assigning responsibilities to regional representatives, but there are still steps that need to be taken regarding the assignment of responsibilities to ministries and departments.
BORDER GATES
Regarding the border gate system, which is a fundamental issue of integration, Ilham Ehmed stated that the management mechanism for the Sêmalka gate and other border gates has been established, and within the framework of developments, employees who worked under the name of the Autonomous Administration continue to work on the basis of integration.
PROBLEMS ARISING
Ilham Ehmed stated that many problems have arisen in the implementation of the mechanism and listed these problems as follows: "The heads of some departments in the province were previously appointed by the interim government after the fall of the Assad regime. This also poses a problem in itself. The truth is that there should be an agreement about those in charge. There are many employees of the Autonomous Administration, these employees should not be left out of work. There should be an agreement on the appointment of those who are presented by the Autonomous Administration and those who are appointed by the interim government. The Autonomous Administration has been operating for a long time and has gained experience, this should be taken into account. Both representation and experience are important in determining the heads. The change will be based on expertise. The important thing is to serve the community and representation. Kurds, Syriacs and Arabs live together in this area."
WOMEN AND DISABILITY ISSUES
Ilham Ehmed stated that the issue of women's representation and will is still a problem and said: "A large number of women worked in the Autonomous Administration. In terms of structure, the structures of the Autonomous Administration and the government are not the same, they are similar to some extent, but they are not the same at the level of management of the directorates. In the context of integration, the names of both women and men are presented for appointment. So far, directors of education and health institutions have been appointed, but both are men. Therefore, the inclusion of women should be taken into account as a special feature and given an important role. There are serious difficulties and obstacles in this regard."
'YPJ IS ON THE AGENDA'
Ilham Ehemd pointed out that one of the issues facing her is the YPJ issue, and continued: "Although the discussions have not yielded any new results for the YPJ, it is still on the agenda. The discussion on formalizing the YPJ is also on the agenda of the interim government. This will continue until an agreement is reached."
One of the integration issues is the election of representatives from the provinces of Hasakah and Kobanê to the parliament (Syrian People's Assembly). Regarding the issue, Ilham Ehmed stated that the preparation for this work is being carried out through a central committee and a preparatory committee of Hasakah Province, and said that the preparatory committee has the initiative.
MUNICIPALITY WILL BE REORGANIZED
In his speech, Ilham Ehmed also mentioned the system of people's municipalities in Rojava and stated that the more municipalities serve the community within the framework of the new system, the faster the province of Hasakah will be able to renew itself. He said that democracy develops on representation and service to the community, so they must prepare themselves for the new process.
WORKS OF THE BASIC CONSTITUTION
Regarding the issue of preparing a new constitution for Syria, Ilham Ehmed stated that after the issue of determining the representatives of Rojava for the parliament, the issue of the constitution will also be seriously on the agenda and said: "The Kurds will also take their place in the committee for writing the new constitution of Syria. Syria needs a new comprehensive constitution and for that, a committee that represents all nations is needed. The Kurds are also essential partners in building this country. Therefore, they must have a fundamental role. This will also happen in the future."
At the end of her evaluations, the Co-Head of the Foreign Relations Department of the Autonomous Administration, Ilham Ehmed, stated that the issue of the detainees is still on the agenda and that they have emphasized in their meetings that all detainees should be released as soon as possible.