It is now common practice to refer to Ahmed al-Sharaa as Syria’s interim president. Following the fall of former president Bashar al-Assad, Sharaa was appointed on January 29, 2025, by the Syrian General Command – the collective leadership of the rebel factions that had coordinated Assad’s overthrow.
Tasked with forming a temporary legislative council and overseeing the drafting of a new constitution, he was given a timeline of up to three years to rewrite the constitution and up to four to hold elections.
Sharaa is not a man to let grass grow under his feet. He decided to start the process by producing an interim constitution. On March 13, he signed a 44-article document, possibly pointing the way toward the new draft constitution when it finally emerges for consultation.
The interim document commits the nation’s governance to unity and inclusivity and explicitly pledges to maintain freedom of opinion and expression. It establishes a People’s Committee to function as an interim parliament and extends the timeline for organizing elections from four to five years.
Despite the claimed good intentions of the new leadership, skepticism persists among religious and ethnic minorities about how inclusive the new structure will be – fears possibly enhanced by the ruthlessness with which Sharaa crushed an insurgency launched on March 6 by local militias loyal to Assad.
Rights groups say that hundreds of civilians, mostly from the Alawite minority sect to which Assad belongs, were killed in retaliatory attacks. Conflict between Sunni and Shi’ite adherents of Islam – like this one – can be truly brutal and bloody.
The Kurds
One minority group, however, has real cause to rejoice at Sharaa’s declared commitment to inclusivity in the new Syria – the Kurds.
Back in 2012, with Syria’s civil war in its early stages, government forces were withdrawn from facing ISIS in the north and deployed to counter the anti-Assad rebels.
Kurdish forces flooded in to fill the power vacuum and began attacking the ISIS caliphate. By 2014-2015, with ISIS in retreat, the Kurds’ battle for Kobani drew US support. Soon after, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), led by Kurdish troops, was established with American backing to complete the defeat of ISIS.
In 2019, the SDF captured the final ISIS stronghold in Baghouz.
Now the SDF governs a large, semi-autonomous region in northeast Syria called Rojava. Most of its population, numbering up to 4 million, is of Kurdish origin, though it also accommodates a variety of other sects. Rojava occupies some 25% of what was originally sovereign Syria.
On March 10, three days before Sharaa signed his new interim constitution, he signed a formal agreement with the SDF leader, Gen. Mazloum Abdi. It stipulates that the Kurdish-led SDF is to be integrated into the nation’s military forces. In addition, the agreement calls for the integration of all “civil and military institutions” in northeastern Syria.
That commitment has potentially vast implications. The “civil institutions” in northeastern Syria encompass the semi-autonomous Rojava region and include oil and gas fields, border crossings, and airports.
Syria’s new constitution, when it eventually appears, could propose a situation akin to that in Iraq, where a Kurdish-majority area has been recognized as a federal entity and accorded autonomy within the constitution.
Ever since the fall of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, the Kurds of Iraq had pressed for autonomy, if not independence. In 1970, after years of conflict, the Iraqi government and Kurdish leaders reached an Autonomy Agreement, but it was never fully implemented.
Following the 1991 Gulf War, a US-led coalition granted the Kurds virtual autonomy, and this status was ratified after the 2003 US invasion of Iraq and overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
In 2005, the new Iraqi constitution formally recognized the Kurdistan Region, which stretches across the north of the country, as an autonomous federal entity with its own government, parliament, and security forces (the Peshmerga).
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) was granted authority over internal matters, while Baghdad retained control over foreign policy, defense, and monetary policy.
That something similar could eventually be offered to the Kurds of Syria becomes a real possibility with the agreement reached between Sharaa and the SDF. Such an outcome would be a nightmare from the point of view of Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Turkey, a long-time supporter of HTS (Hayat Tahrir al-Sham), the rebel movement that overthrew the Assad regime, now has strong political influence with Sharaa, its leader. Erdogan no doubt hopes to use it to control his perennial Kurdish problem by continuing to occupy the swaths of Syria that he has overrun.
But despite his dominant political position in post-Assad Syria, it is far from certain that he will be able to do so.
Erdogan has consistently viewed the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the dominant force in the SDF, as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a militant group that has been a constant political irritant with its demand for Kurdish autonomy within Turkey.
Accordingly, in 2016, Erdogan instituted Operation Euphrates Shield, capturing an area in northern Syria. He followed this two years later with Operation Olive Branch, during which he overran Afrin.
In 2019, after the US announced its withdrawal from parts of northern Syria, he launched Operation Peace Spring, establishing a so-called “safe zone” on the Syrian side of the Turkish-Syrian border, aiming to use it to resettle Syrian refugees currently in Turkey.
Erdogan has more or less annexed all the areas he has overrun. They are now governed by Turkey-backed local councils, use the Turkish lira as currency, and are heavily influenced by Turkish infrastructure projects, including schools, hospitals, and post offices. It is doubtful if these could survive a new Syrian constitution.
Even more disturbing from Erdogan’s point of view is that Rojava in northern Syria abuts the KRG in northern Iraq and that the idea of their amalgamating at some point in the future to form a Kurdistan Free State becomes a real possibility.
The implications for Turkey of such a development would be profound and present Erdogan with one of the biggest geopolitical challenges of his presidency. The most likely scenario would be for him to take a hardline military approach, but this could come at the cost of worsening Turkey’s relations with its allies and deepening domestic unrest.
Meanwhile, it certainly looks as though Kurdish autonomy could be recognized and ratified in Syria’s new constitution.
The writer is the Middle East correspondent for Eurasia Review. His latest book is: Trump and the Holy Land: 2016-2020. Follow him at: www.a-mid-east-journal.blogspot.com
