Syrian Authorities Fill 11 Kurdish-Area Seats Through Indirect Selection Process

Syrian authorities on May 24 completed selection of 11 parliament members from the Kurdish-majority areas of Hasakah province and the Kobani district. Five of the seats went to Kurdish candidates. The selection used an indirect process in which the Higher Committee for Parliamentary Elections appointed subcommittees that then appointed roughly 7,000 local election boards.

Those boards voted to fill the seats. Kurdish officials described the process as an appointment system that did not reflect free Kurdish will.

-mediated agreement signed in January established a framework for integrating the Syrian Democratic Forces and the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria into state structures. Damascus has since incorporated four SDF brigades into the Syrian army and appointed senior SDF commander Siphan Hamo as deputy defense minister for the Eastern Region.

President Ahmad al-Sharaa issued a January 18 decree recognizing Kurdish as a national language and granting rights to citizenship, cultural recognition, and Kurdish-language instruction in schools. Earlier this month, protesters in Hasakah removed a government billboard after authorities replaced Kurdish-Arabic text with English and Arabic.

Syria's parliament has not convened since the constitutional declaration took effect, leaving legislative authority with the president under Article 30. Kurdish organizations were not included in the March 2025 constitutional drafting process and rejected the resulting declaration.