Decentralization: The gateway to a new Syria

Negotiations are underway between the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) and the Syrian Transitional Government over several key issues, including the future system of governance in the country. The transitional government insists on maintaining a centralized system, which has, according to critics, led to Syria’s devastation and the displacement of its citizens. In contrast, the Autonomous Administration believes that political decentralization is the only genuine guarantee for protecting the rights of all communities and preventing internal conflict.

In this context, politician Jan Murad views the current political movement in Syria with caution not out of pessimism or preemptive rejection of dialogue, but because he considers the path to reconciliation fraught with complex challenges and contradictions that go beyond the capacity of Syrians alone to resolve.

Murad stated that while calls for negotiations are encouraging and necessary, their credibility stems largely from the fact that they come from the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, which seeks to silence the sound of weapons and rebuild Syrian–Syrian trust.

He pointed out that deep mistrust and imbalance between the Autonomous Administration and the Transitional Government remain major obstacles to meaningful dialogue. He attributed this to the persistent foreign influence in Damascus, particularly Turkey’s interference, which continues to exploit fears and impose its agenda against the Syrians themselves.

Murad argued that the transitional government lacks an independent will and that it is impossible to build a national project with a party that has none, despite the efforts of the Autonomous Administration to do so. “Turkey,” he said, “obstructs any national settlement that does not guarantee it a role in Syria’s security and economy.”

He added, “Turkey is trying to turn itself into an unofficial tutelary power within the Syrian political process, reproducing dependency under a new guise.”

According to Murad, Syria today is not an independent entity negotiating with itself but rather a mosaic of overlapping spheres of influence involving regional and international powers Turkey, Russia, Iran, and the United States.

He noted that the entire region is undergoing a redefinition of political identities amid rapid global transformations, placing the Syrian scene at a crossroads. He stressed that the Kurds could play a pivotal role in shaping a new political model if they can correctly read the changing landscape.

Murad considered the ongoing negotiations between the Autonomous Administration and the Transitional Government a necessary, albeit long and complex, step toward building genuine national understandings provided that political will, accumulated awareness, and the realization that the solution must be a pluralistic, democratic, and wholly Syrian one, eventually emerge.

He stated, “It is essential to redefine the relationship between the central government and other administrations, and between authority and society, on the basis of participation, balance, and genuine partnership among all components without exclusion, guardianship, or domination.”

Murad affirmed that if a new Syria is ever to be born, it will not be built on the centralization of the past and present. The natural entry point for any national salvation project, he said, lies in democracy and decentralization historical necessities dictated by the very nature of Syrian society.

He stressed that no stable state can be built unless every social group in Syria feels genuinely represented in political, administrative, and economic decision-making.

“As a Kurd,” Murad said, “my rights are not to be summarized in flowery words or hollow slogans neither in Assad’s ‘mosaic’ nor in today’s ‘legitimacy’ rhetoric. My rights are an intrinsic human essence neither granted by regimes nor bestowed as charity, and they cannot be reduced to mere speeches.”

Murad believes that democratic transformation can serve as a tool to correct the distorted relationship between the state and society, rebuild lost trust among different actors, and enable genuine representation of Kurds, Arabs, Syriacs, Assyrians, and all other components of the country.

On how decentralization could help reduce security and military dominance over civilian life in Syria, Murad explained that adopting a genuine decentralized system would transfer powers and resources to local administrations, allowing communities to manage their own affairs independently from authoritarian control.

He noted that the extreme centralization practiced by the Baath regime for decades is the primary reason for the current state of collapse in the country.

Murad emphasized that the essence of any genuine political reform lies in transforming state institutions from tools of control and militarization into instruments of service and development. He warned that the current authorities continue to expand the reach of security and military apparatuses at the expense of civil institutions a trend that bodes ill for Syria’s future.

He added that a decentralized model allowing each region to express its cultural and social identity would reduce local conflict drivers and strengthen political and social stability. “Decentralization,” he said, “is essentially a fair redistribution of the social contract.”

Murad asserted that the model developed by the Autonomous Administration could serve as a foundation for dialogue on a new Syrian framework that preserves both the unity and diversity of the country.

He concluded by warning that the continuation of exclusionary politics renders any dialogue fragile and vulnerable to collapse, given the absence of independent national institutions and the deep internal divisions both political and military compounded by foreign interventions that have turned Syria into an arena of regional and international conflict.

Finally, Jan Murad described the Autonomous Administration’s experience in North and East Syria as a unique embodiment of a “miniature Syria,” where Arabs, Kurds, Syriacs, and others coexist within a democratic and participatory framework.

“Extending this model to the whole of Syria,” he concluded, “could form the basis for a comprehensive political solution one grounded in democratic decentralization, respect for diversity, and a fair distribution of power that guarantees the country’s unity and stability.