Syria’s interim parliament, sworn in earlier this week after President Ahmed al-Sharaa appointed its last 70 members, contains no representatives from the organization that led Kurdish efforts in the country’s long civil war.
Members of the left-wing Democratic Union Party (PYD), long the dominant political force among Syria’s Kurds, are conspicuously missing from those appointed to the 210-seat chamber. Sharaa’s selections underscore his goal to build a unified Syrian state, and creates greater inroads for Turkey’s regional ambitions.
Sharaa’s picks did include Abdul Hakim Bashar of the more conservative Kurdish National Council (KNC), which favors integration of Syria’s largest ethnic minority into a federal state and has opposed the creation of an autonomous Kurdish region, something the Democratic Union Party supports.
The left-wing party is a main element of the wider political-military coalition of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Kurdish-led group that played a central role in fighting Islamic State and still runs detention centers housing thousands of former ISIS fighters. While Sharaa’s government does include some SDF officials, notably Deputy Minister of Defense Sipan Hamo, the group’s absence from Syria’s parliament is likely to reduce its political weight to the advantage of the Kurdish National Council.
“The KNC is now set to become the main channel through which Syrian Kurds convey their demands to the Syrian government, giving the party significant legitimacy among many Syrian Kurds,” said Recep T. Teke, visiting researcher at Turkish think tank ORSAM, in a post on X.
Since the fall of Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, attempts to integrate Syria’s Kurds, who make up roughly 10 percent of the country’s population, into the transitional government have faced substantial challenges. The Democratic Union Party and the Kurdish National Council have differed greatly in their approaches to working with Sharaa to secure Kurdish rights, and the recent parliamentary appointments indicate the president’s clear preference for the more conservative group.
While it remains to be seen whether this will change the status of Syrian Kurds, the appointments have prompted some SDF supporters to accuse “the KNC of cooperating with Damascus at the expense of Kurdish unity,” Teke said.
A more cooperative Kurdish partner for Damascus
Unlike the SDF, which in addition to the PYD has a military wing in Syria, the Kurdish National Council maintains merely a political presence in the country. Although the KNC does technically have a military branch, known as the Rojava Peshmerga, it is based in Iraq, and has repeatedly been blocked by the SDF from operating in Syria.
“[The SDF] didn’t establish its authority through popular support or a transparent process,” Musab Dönertaş, Levant studies researcher at ORSAM, told MBN. “It established its authority through its armed force.”
In November 2013, during the early stages of Syria’s civil war, the PYD declared an autonomous region in northern Syria called Rojava. Assad, whose military forces were too preoccupied defending Syria’s western territories from rebels, acquiesced to the existence of the Kurdish autonomous region. In October 2015, as ISIS posed a growing threat in Syria, the PYD and Arab rebels formed the SDF as the official military-political wing of Rojava, backed by the U.S.
The SDF continued to operate Rojava as an autonomous region. Then, in December 2024, Al-Assad was overthrown and Sharaa came to power as president of Syria’s interim government with the staunch goal of unifying the country into a highly centralized state. This entailed the integration of Syrian Kurds and an active opposition to an autonomous Kurdish region.
In March 2025, the SDF signed integration agreements with Sharaa, but negotiations stalled and devolved into armed clashes between the SDF and Syrian government forces by the end of that year. In January 2026, the SDF suffered major losses to Sharaa’s forces after the withdrawal of the U.S. from Rojava, losing 80 percent of its territory including the oil-rich province of Deir al-Zor, and Raqqa, which contains important hydroelectric dams.
The SDF and Sharaa’s forces reached a comprehensive deal brokered by the U.S. on January 18 that set harsh terms for the SDF, including integration of Kurdish civilian and military structures into Syria’s central government.
Yet even after military defeat, the SDF has resisted Sharaa politically, including by boycotting May elections in the northeastern provinces captured by Sharaa’s forces. Top Syrian Kurdish official Foza Yusuf criticized those elections as “undemocratic” and said they “put [the Kurds] at a further disadvantage.”
The KNC, in contrast, has been much more willing to work with the Syrian government on integration and in elections, and has no significant military presence in Syria. And now, with Kurdish unity elusive in Syria, it has emerged as the only Kurdish party to which Sharaa is receptive.
A victory for Turkey
Turkey in particular stands to benefit from the Kurdish National Council’s elevated position in Syria.
Ankara has long been hostile to the SDF, which it regards as a mere extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Turkey. The SDF rejects that characterization, but it has historically held close ideological relations with the group, which Turkey regards as a terrorist organization.
The KNC’s greater willingness to engage peacefully with Sharaa’s government aligns with Ankara’s goals regarding Kurdish integration, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed a positive reaction to the January deal between Al-Shaara and the SDF.
“Turkey attaches great importance to the participation of Syrian Kurds and all other elements of the country in the current transition process,” Dönertaş said. “It supports Syrians, with all their components, coming together and developing dialogue through legitimate democratic channels.”
After being excluded from parliament, advancing cooperation with the KNC may become more necessary for the SDF’s relations with neighboring states, specifically regarding “the importance of maintaining reasonable relations with the Iraqi KRG and Ankara, both friendly to the KNC,” said James Jeffrey, a former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and Turkey and the U.S. envoy to Syria during Trump’s first term.
Continued challenges
A political shift from the SDF to the KNC might ultimately have little bearing on the status of Syrian Kurds, said Meghan Bodette, director of research at the Kurdish Peace Institute.
“The individual or political breakdown of Kurdish representation in Damascus does not change the structural disadvantages Kurds face there,” she said. “Kurds are underrepresented in the Syrian parliament compared to their estimated demographic weight.”
The structure of Syria’s interim government has complicated the empowerment of Kurds and minority groups in general. As part of the transitional government constitution, parliamentary elections are run through an indirect, electoral college system, primarily due to difficulties in accurately determining ethnic populations in Syria following 13 years of civil war.
This system has exacerbated what many Kurdish leaders and other minority groups have criticized as a discriminatory election process. The predominantly Druze province of Sweida in southern Syria, for example, was excluded from elections due to sectarian violence, though Sharaa did appoint two representatives from the region. The provinces of Hasaka and Raqqa were also barred.
“No Syrian MPs were popularly elected,” Bodette said. “Many owe their positions, directly or indirectly, to the president — making the prospect of legislative checks on executive power and priorities unlikely.”
Under this system, working widely with Damascus, as the KNC has positioned itself to do, might not open a hopeful path for Syrian Kurds, according to Bodette.
“Syrian Kurds want security, prosperity and full rights and recognition as a distinct Kurdish community,” said Bodette. “Most distrust or resent the new state after its attacks on Kurdish communities earlier this year.”
“Many are critical of both PYD and KNC officials for what they see as a willingness to deal with Damascus without securing collective gains for Kurdish communities in return.”
With the KNC cooperating with Damascus and Sharaa, and the PYD significantly weakened, the future of Syria’s Kurds remains uncertain.
