00:00We have to be clear to our listeners that they understand something.
00:04So far, all of the clashes between the former SDF, the YPG, and the Syrian army happened in Arab areas.
00:11There was literally no fighting in the Kurdish areas of northeastern Syria.
00:15In northeastern Syria so far, the Syrian army only liberated other areas.
00:19And all of this basically happened because the SDF at that time and the YPG insisted
00:25that they should continue controlling and governing Arab areas.
00:29So they were an occupying force and they wanted to maintain the occupation,
00:32and therefore we did not reach an agreement, even though Damascus made concessions
00:37that were rejected by Ankara, to be precise.
00:40Damascus agreed to the SDF integrating into the army as three divisions, which was a cathartic no.
00:46And it was Damascus that convinced Turkey to not launch a military operation against the SDF a year ago.
00:52So coming back to where we stand now, when Ahmad al-Shara released a decree for Kurdish rights,
00:59there were celebrations among all the Kurdish areas currently controlled by the Syrian government.
01:04In Afrin, in Damascus, in Aleppo, Kurds celebrated.
01:09But the celebrations of the Kurds...
01:10And the Syria celebrated, actually.
01:11Even the Arab celebrated.
01:13Yeah.
01:14Yes.
01:15And there were no celebrations in northeastern Syria by the Kurds who were controlled by the YPG.
01:21So why?
01:21This is the first question.
01:22The second question here is that we need to address the elephant in the room.
01:26The Kurds are, as of now, with this decree, a privileged minority in Syria, to be clear.
01:33Now there is an unfairness against other minorities in Syria.
01:37For instance, the Syrian Turkmen, they speak Turkish, they are Syrian,
01:41and they lived in Syria longer than the Turks lived in Anatolia, in Turkey.
01:45And they don't have the same rights as the Syrian Kurds as of now,
01:49even though their numbers in terms of population is, according to some more,
01:54according to some less than the Kurds, but approximately the same.
01:57And they don't have the same rights, cultural and linguistical rights, as the Syrian Kurds.
02:02So if this is about the rights of the Syrian Kurds, they are a privileged minority as of now.
02:08And the Syrian army has declared that they will not enter the Kurdish areas.
02:12They want these Kurdish areas to be integrated into the Syrian state peacefully,
02:17and they are willing to generate a police force for the Kurdish areas specifically,
02:23consisting out of locals.
02:25So this is a huge concession from Damascus.
02:28And the governance structure should be localized.
02:31And Ahmed Asherah even proposed to Maslum Abdi that he can decide who should become
02:36the deputy defense minister of Syria, the governor of Haseke.
02:40And Haseke, the governorate of Haseke, is majority Arab.
02:45It's not majority Kurdish.
02:46But he offered the governorship position to be decided by the YPG.
02:51And he agreed that the new parliament, there is a third that was not appointed by Ahmed Asherah yet,
02:57that the Maslum Abdi can suggest names to be appointed as parliament members.
03:03So if this happens, and if indirect elections happen in the northeast and Syria,
03:09the Kurdish parliamentary representation in the Syrian parliament will be more than the Kurds are in Syria.
03:17They will be overrepresented in the Syrian parliament.
03:21So from a Kurdish rights point of view, they have won big time.
03:24But the question is, is this about the Kurdish rights, yes or no?
03:28And everything that happened in the last year indicate that this is not about Kurdish rights,
03:32that this is about the PKKs aimed of a one-party totalitarian regime to control everything.
03:40But unfortunately for them, they have lost all the oil fields,
03:43and they have lost the ISIS card as the Syrian government has taken over the Al-Hol camp.
03:48And now the United States of America works with the Syrian government against ISIS.
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