19/09/2022

Syrian Consultative Forum to find solution to national crisis concludes in Zalin, North and East Syria

ZALIN, Syria —  The two-day Syrian Consultative Forum organized in the city of Zalin (Qamishli), North and East Syria, concluded on Saturday. Prominent personalities, organizations, and political parties, including the Syriac Union Party (SUP) and the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), participated.

The Forum concluded its activities on Saturday with a set of recommendations, the most important of which was an agreement on a political solution for Syria. The participants stressed that there is no military solution to the Syrian crisis and a political solution is the only way forward.

The statement also stressed that the Syrian identity includes national, ethnic, cultural, religious, class, and social diversity. Governance structures should reflect this in composition and be based on full and free citizenship.

The participants unanimously agreed that the future Syria should be a democratic, pluralistic, decentralized one. Interventions varied on the forms of decentralization that they hoped for, with some  emphasizing that a strong state needs a strong decentralized democratic system that prevents the reproduction of tyranny and corruption.

Some participants stressed that they felt the Democratic Autonomous Administration (DAA) was the best model for all of Syria.

On the other hand, Jaafar Ali of the Movement for Peaceful Change said that, within the general framework of the National Dialogue conferences, all of the national dialogue conferences provide positive results, whether we agree on them or disagree.

He added that the issue of decentralization has great advantages and removes injustice from the provinces where there was historical injustice due to the totalitarian regime, and the law should legislate the non-separation of the provinces within a new modern constitution.

Co-Chair of the Syriac Union Party (SUP) Sanharib Barsoum told Suroyo TV that the aim of these meetings is a dialogue between Syrians about the political solution in Syria, national identity, and the decentralized system, which are important issues that require Syrians to agree on.

He added that the dialogues on the issues raised were good and achieved positive results.


Syriac Union Party (SUP) Co-Chair Sanharib Barsoum.

Barsoum also talked about the importance of defining a national identity that is unifying, away from chauvinism, and that it should not be an identity for a specific ethnicity or religion, but rather be inclusive of all society’s components.

He said that the importance of recognizing the rights of the Syriac (Aramean–Assyrian–Chaldean) people was stressed during the Forum and there was agreement that the Syriac language should be made an official language. This principle applies to other components as well, he added, stating that the participants of the Forum agreed that enshrining pluralism in the future Syria was necessary for its success.