Syria’s president makes Kurdish a national language
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A family fleeing from a Kurdish-controlled area in Rasm al-Harmal, east of Aleppo city, on Jan 16.
PHOTO: AFP
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- President Sharaa decreed Kurdish a "national language" in Syria, allowing its teaching in schools with Kurdish populations.
- The decree grants nationality to Kurds, reversing the effects of a 1962 census that stripped 20% of them of citizenship.
- This decree arrives amidst fighting between the Syrian army and Kurdish forces in northern Syria, stalling a previous integration deal.
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DAMASCUS - Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa issued a decree on Jan 16 making Kurdish a “national language” and granting the minority community national rights, as his army fights Kurdish forces in the north.
The decree makes Kurdish a national language that can be taught in public schools in areas where the minority community is heavily present.
Mr Sharaa also made the Kurdish new year Nowruz, which falls on March 21, an official holiday.
The decree grants nationality to Kurds, as 20 per cent of them had been stripped of it under a controversial 1962 census.
“Syrian Kurdish citizens are an essential and integral part of the Syrian people, and their cultural and linguistic identity is an inseparable part of the diverse and unified Syrian national identity,” the decree said.
The Kurdish minority suffered decades of marginalisation and oppression under previous rulers in Syria.
Kurdish forces took control of swathes of Syria’s oil-rich north and north-east during the country’s civil war and the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria militant group over the past decade.
Mr Sharaa’s army said on Jan 16 it was fighting Kurdish forces in the north after having driven them out of Aleppo
The fighting came as progress to implement a deal in March to fold a Kurdish de facto autonomous administration in the north into the state had stalled. AFP
