SDF Says Ready To Hand Syrian Manbij To Authorities If Wide Autonomy Permitted

Rukhshan Mir (@rukhshanmir) Published December 21, 2018 | 07:21 PM

DAMASCUS (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 21st December, 2018) The Arab-Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are ready to hand power over the northern Syrian city of Manbij to the Syrian government upon condition that the city would be granted right to self-administration, Jihan Sheikh Ahmad, an SDF official spokeswoman, told Sputnik on Friday.

"We are a part of Syria and we don't call for separatism, but we want agreement on self-administration as part of free Syria to be reached," Ahmad said, when asked if Manbij could be handed over to the Syrian government.

According to Ahmad, the SDF does not mind letting the Syrian government come back to the Kurdish-dominated area close to the Turkish border.

"But our interests need to be respected via achieving democracy in decentralized Syria. We don't want to be a part of a state going through secession.

We just want self-administration in this region, and it does not matter which flag [flies over Manbij]," the spokeswoman added.

She stressed that the SDF currently mainly aimed at maintaining security in the region. Ahmad recalled that a range of problems emerged during the several rounds of talks held between the SDF and the Syrian government.

Since August 2016, Manbij has been controlled by Kurdish groups that liberated it from terrorist organizations, including the Islamic State (banned in Russia) terrorist group, which took it over in 2014.

On Wednesday, Trump said that the US forces would be pulled out from Syria since the IS had been defeated there. On the same day, US and French forces began to abandon their positions near Manbij.