DAANES Official Ilhan Ahmed Calls for Decentralization & US Support in New York Times Op-Ed

Syrian Kurdish Leader Pushes for Decentralization, Calls on U.S. to Support a New Constitutional Process

For Immediate Release

May 28th, 2025

Contact: Debbie Bookchin

press@defendrojava.org

In a powerful New York Times Op-Ed published today, Syrian Kurdish leader Ilham Ahmed outlines the dangers facing Syria, and the importance of safeguarding democracy and human rights. Pointing to her region’s own decentralized system as a model, she calls on the United States and all international parties to help oversee an inclusive constitutional process that can guarantee the rights of all Syrians. 

Ahmed observes: “As a new Syria takes shape, we must ask: What kind of state will it be? Democratic or autocratic? I believe the answer lies in my region, where we have created what we consider to be a model of multiethnic direct democracy… Under our administration, ethnic groups are legally protected and women are given a leading role in policy-making and society” 

She goes on to state: “We need a new constitutional process to produce a document that guarantees power-sharing, safeguards political freedoms, allows for full democratic participation regardless of religion, ethnicity, or gender and decentralizes government."

Ahmed is co-chair of the foreign relations department of the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES), the region controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), who spearheaded the war against ISIS in close partnership with the United States. 

Since the fall of Bashar al-Assad last December, Syria’s future has been hanging in the balance. While a March 10th agreement between the SDF and the country’s new President Ahmed al-Sharaa marked a formal commitment to the unification of Syria and the recognition of Kurdish rights, the transitional government’s recent constitutional declaration signaled intentions to centralize executive power and institutionalize an exclusively Arab and Islamic identity for the country. 

As Ahmed explains in her piece, the United States has a critical role to play in securing a democratic and peaceful future for Syria. At a time when political, military and economic power is in a state of flux across the Middle East, failure to act now risks plunging Syria—and the broader region—into another generation of violence, authoritarianism, and instability.

The Emergency Committee for Rojava supports the Autonomous Administration’s call for the United States and other international parties to help broker a new constitutional process that protects the rights of all Syrians to political participation and self-determination, as they have been protected in Northeast Syria for the past 12 years. 

In the words of Ilham Ahmed: “The new Syria must, from the outset, include everyone.”

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