ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A German lawmaker hosted an event at the North Rhine-Westphalia state parliament in Dusseldorf, bringing together Kurds from northeast Syria (Rojava), as well as Alawite, Druze, and Christian Syrians, to discuss the future of their country in the post-Bashar al-Assad era.
“In my opinion, it's very important to bring together different ethnic groups from the diaspora and support them, because they all have a common interest, which is protecting minorities,” Green Party parliamentarian Gonul Eglence told Rudaw at the panel on Saturday. “I want to protect that interest, it doesn't matter if they're in Germany or Syria. We always want to think globally and act locally.”
Eglence, who is of Turkish origin, said her aim in organizing the meeting was to listen to representatives of Syria’s diverse civil society groups.
Some participants voiced concern about the governing approach of Syria’s new authorities.
“We are facing the repetition of the same behavior of the Assad regime before, also, the insistence of the Assad regime upon centralism for example. Today, the new authority in Damascus is insisting upon centralism,” Samer Fahd, a Druze community activist based in Germany, told Rudaw. “Previously we had a kind of autonomous management and administration, but now the new authorities are demanding centralization.