Ceasefires, integration deals, and decrees can stabilise territory, but they cannot settle Syria’s constitutional question of equal citizenship. For Syria’s Kurds, they also revive a familiar risk: recognition that remains legally reversible. Executive gestures may restore citizenship, but they do not bind security institutions, guarantee equal representation, or constrain constitution-making. This post argues that reintegration cannot substitute for enforceable rights. If Damascus wants durable unity, Kurdish equality must become a constitutional commitment, not a conditional arrangement.
Decrees Signal Change, Not Security
For decades, Syrian authorities treated Kurdish belonging as an administrative and security issue rather than a matter of equal citizenship. The 1962 Hasakah census entrenched this exclusion by leaving many Kurds without recognised nationality and vulnerable to routine bureaucratic denial.
On 16 January 2026, Syria’s interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa issued Decree No. 13 to restore nationality and recognition to Kurds harmed by the 1962 Hasakah census and the exceptional legal regime that followed. The decree matters because it breaks with decades of administrative exclusion.
Yet decrees are structurally fragile. They can be narrowed, delayed, or quietly neutralised through security practice and bureaucracy. Most importantly, they do not establish remedies that survive a political shift. Recognition becomes durable only when translated into enforceable rights that constrain state power.
Aleppo Shows How „Unity“ Turns Coercive
This fragility shaped recent dealings between Damascus and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Negotiations stalled, and violence returned in Aleppo. Clashes in Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiya produced harm and displacement, followed by a ceasefire.
The sequence is the warning: when political bargaining collapses, the dispute returns as coercion. If legal inclusion is conditional, security force becomes the state’s default method of producing „unity“. Ceasefires can halt fighting, but they do not solve the constitutional conflict beneath it.
Integration Moves Power Before Rights
Damascus and the SDF announced an integration framework transferring control of strategic infrastructure: oil and gas sites, detention facilities holding ISIS suspects, and key border crossings. In practical terms, this entails the transfer of authority from SDF’s de facto administration in the northeast to interim government institutions based in Damascus. From a constitutional perspective, it moves coercive capacity to the centre without locking in minority protection.
Integration reallocates force and territory; it does not secure equal citizenship. Without enforceable safeguards, reintegration makes Kurdish rights conditional and concentrates control over security, resources, and administration in Damascus.
Territorial Integrity Is Not a Blank Cheque
Kurdish leaders have repeatedly affirmed Syria’s unity and territorial integrity. That stance is legally coherent. But „unity“ cannot be used to suspend equality. International law offers a helpful baseline. The ICJ’s Kosovo advisory opinion confirms that territorial integrity primarily regulates relations between states, not every internal political dispute. More importantly, the safeguard clause of UN General Assembly Resolution 2625 ties territorial integrity to a government representing the whole people „without distinction“.
Unity, then, is not a constitutional licence to preserve hierarchy. It is legally connected to non-discrimination. For Syria, that connection is decisive: Kurdish inclusion must be institutionalised, not managed as a security file.
A Regional Lesson on Non-Enforcement
Syria’s Kurds also read promises through recent regional experience. Iraqi Kurdistan secured federal status in the 2005 Iraqi Constitution, but Baghdad failed to implement Article 140 on disputed territories by the end of 2007. When enforcement collapsed, constitutional text became politically insufficient and power shifted back toward the centre.
The lesson is not that autonomy is inevitable or impossible. The lesson is that bargains without enforcement invite reversal. Syria’s transition will face the same test: can it produce guarantees that survive conflict and changes in leadership?
Return and Displacement Are Constitutional Questions
Any settlement must also address displacement caused by external military pressure and territorial fragmentation, including Turkey’s cross-border interventions and the actions of Turkey-backed armed factions. Return is not only humanitarian. It is constitutional.
Return determines membership: who can live safely, register property, organise politically, and participate in public life. Without credible protections for return, „inclusion“ becomes selective and demography becomes policy.
The March 2025 Contradiction
This is why details of transitional texts matter. In March 2025, Sharaa and SDF commander Mazloum Abdi signed an agreement envisioning the integration of civil and military institutions in northeastern Syria into the state.
Days later, Sharaa issued a Constitutional Declaration reaffirming the „Syrian Arab Republic“, making Arabic the only official language, and naming Islamic jurisprudence as a principal source of legislation. Whatever the intention, the message to minorities was clear: centralisation first, inclusion later. Kurdish-led bodies rejected the declaration as exclusionary.
That contradiction is the transition’s core weakness: integration can be framed as partnership while the constitutional framework signals hierarchy.
What a Settlement Must Contain
If Damascus seeks durable unity, it must constitutionalise Kurdish equality through enforceable commitments at a moment when the interim authorities are already shaping the transition through decrees and foundational texts, while the terms of a comprehensive constitution-writing process remain politically contested.
- Entrench equal citizenship beyond decrees. Language rights, cultural institutions, and political participation must have constitutional status and judicial remedies.
- Commit to meaningful decentralisation. Elected local authorities, protected competencies, and fiscal rules can distribute power without dissolving the state.
- Regulate security integration with oversight. Integration must include accountability, clear command structures, and guarantees against collective punishment.
- Protect resources and return through transparent rules. Border revenues, hydrocarbons, and reconstruction funds should not be governed through opaque bargaining. Property protection and the safe return of displaced Kurdish residents and other affected civilian communities must be treated as constitutional priorities.
Conclusion
Ceasefires and decrees can create an image of stability. They cannot replace a constitutional bargain. The decisive question is whether Syria turns recognition into entrenchment: guarantees that bind institutions, remain justiciable, and survive political change. Without that, Kurdish rights remain contingent, and „unity“ becomes a security project rather than a constitutional settlement. Yet even constitutional entrenchment is only as protective as the institutions that enforce it. The Kurdish experience in Iraq illustrates the risk of treating constitutional text as self-executing: Baghdad’s failure to implement Article 140 of the 2005 Iraqi Constitution shows how formally entrenched commitments can be delayed, hollowed out, and ultimately overtaken by central coercive leverage. For Syria, the implication is straightforward: rights must be coupled with effective remedies, institutional oversight, and administrative compliance capable of constraining security practice in daily governance.
Zitiervorschlag: Firouzi Mandomi, Faraz, A Ceasefire Is Not a Settlement, JuWissBlog Nr. 08/2026 v. 27.01.2026, https://www.juwiss.de/08-2026/.
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