President Sharaa Issues Historic Decree for Syrian Kurds

Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Friday issued a historic decree granting Kurdish Syrians full citizenship and formally recognizing their language, state news agency SANA reported.

The decree comes after deadly clashes last week in Aleppo, which left at least 23 dead and forced more than 150,000 people to flee two Kurdish-run areas of the city. The unrest ended after Kurdish fighters withdrew.

For the first time, the decree recognizes Kurdish identity as part of Syria’s national fabric, designates Kurdish as a national language alongside Arabic, and allows schools to teach it. It also restores citizenship to those who had been stripped of nationality under a 1962 Hasaka census.

The decree further declares Nowruz, the spring and new year festival, a national holiday, bans ethnic and linguistic discrimination, and mandates inclusive messaging in state institutions, with penalties for inciting ethnic strife.

The announcement follows months of talks between the Syrian government and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to integrate Kurdish-run military and civil bodies into Syrian state institutions, though progress has been limited.