ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani on Saturday welcomed a decree issued by Syria’s interim president concerning Kurdish rights, while stressing the need for such measures to be entrenched in permanent law.
Syrian interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Friday addressed the Kurds in a video message, announcing that he had signed a “special decree” guaranteeing Kurdish “rights and certain particularities,” as fighting continues between Syrian state forces and Kurdish-led forces in northern Syria.
“Recognizing the Kurds as an integral component and protecting their rights constitutes an important and correct political and legal step toward building a new Syria and ensuring the rights of all,” President Barzani said in a statement.
At the same time, Barzani emphasized that durable guarantees must go beyond temporary measures. “While we highly appreciate this decree, we stress that the true and full value of such decisions lies in transforming them into enforceable laws and enshrining them in the upcoming Syrian constitution to ensure their protection and sustainability.”
The Kurdish-led Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES), which governs northeast Syria (Rojava), echoed that position.
“Rights are not protected by temporary decrees, but rather safeguarded and entrenched through permanent constitutions that reflect the will of all peoples and components,” DAANES said in a statement.
According to the decree, Kurdish is recognized as a “national language” and permitted in schools in areas where “Kurds constitute a notable percentage of the population,” as part of elective curricula. Arabic remains Syria’s only official language, and the decree does not mandate Kurdish-language instruction nationwide.
Kurds in Rojava already study in their mother tongue from first grade through university under the DAANES education system. Arabic is taught as a mandatory second language beginning in the fourth grade, while other ethnic and religious groups study in their own languages and take Kurdish as a second language from year four.
The decree also designates the Kurdish New Year, Newroz, as a public holiday in Syria, coinciding with Mother’s Day, which is already a national holiday.
It further states that all Syrian Kurds are to be granted citizenship, including those previously classified as “unrecorded” under the ousted Bashar al-Assad regime. Damascus and its regional ally Turkey have repeatedly said Kurds stripped of citizenship under the former government would be granted Syrian nationality.
Syrian Kurds have faced state discrimination since the country’s establishment nearly 80 years ago, including restrictions on political, economic, and cultural rights. The Kurdish language was banned from public use for decades. Following a 1962 census that Human Rights Watch said was conducted arbitrarily, tens of thousands of Kurds were stripped of citizenship after being labeled “alien infiltrators” from Turkey.