In mid-January, interim Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa issued a decree granting citizenship to Kurdish Syrians – a right denied to many for decades – and recognising Kurdish culture and language as integral parts of Syrian culture. Two weeks later, the Minister of Interior mandated that implementation procedures be prepared and issued by 5 February 2026 and apply to all Kurds in Syria, explicitly including those listed as stateless.
And yet, as ink was put to paper in Damascus, there was no celebration in the streets of Kobani, a Kurdish city in Northern Syria made famous for its resistance against the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) in 2014. Instead, Kobani was under siege, without electricity and water in freezing temperatures – surrounded by Syrian government forces.
“It is notable that this important decree has come at a moment of all-time low confidence among Kurds towards the central government,” notes McGee, EUI Max Weber Fellow at the Robert Schuman Centre, whose decade-long work in humanitarian programmes in Syria also informs his research. “Since the start of the offensive [January 6], the Kurdish-led DAANES lost control over a considerable part of the territory it had been controlling since 2017.”
This territory was consolidated by the Kurds in the fight against ISIS. In 2014, when ISIS controlled around one-third of Iraqi and Syrian territory, the Kurds worked with international allies, such as the EU and the US, to seize it back from the group – losing around 11,000 fighters in the process.
“Over the last decade, the US and wider international community, including key European states, have played a major role in engaging with Kurds from Syria,” reminds McGee. “The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were a key player on the ground within the efforts of the Global Coalition Against Daesh, or ISIS. The fact that the EU has been largely silent on the current plight of Kurds in Syria after so many Kurds made significant sacrifices in the name of the military fight for global security against ISIS leads to a feeling of betrayal.”
Furthermore, “the legacy of historically unfulfilled promises now leaves many Kurds feeling nervous about their future within the Syrian state,” McGee notes. “This is, perhaps, especially the case for hundreds of thousands of Syrian Kurds who have been deprived of Syrian citizenship for decades as a result of an exceptional census in 1962.” The 1962 census – explored in depth in McGee’s earlier research – stripped members of the Kurdish ethnic minority of citizenship and created two categories of stateless Kurds: ajanib, or foreigners, and maktumeen – those completely unregistered, who have been subject to even greater rights violations.
As McGee, an expert on citizenship rights, explains in his publication Implications of legal identity documentation issued by the Kurdish-led Self Administration in Northern Syria: competition and compromise with the central state, the DAANES had refrained from engaging in the state-like behaviour of issuing paperwork resembling or implicitly replacing Syrian citizenship papers. It did, however, provide forms of subsidiary documents that allowed those deprived of citizenship or legal identity to exercise some rights and live a normal life: voting in elections within the territory, driving, confirmation of residency. “While DAANES sometimes provided rights not officially recognised by Damascus, these individuals remained technically stateless and were therefore lacking any definite resolution to their legal predicament,” notes McGee.
Losing control of territory also deprives the Kurds of something equally important: leverage. As government forces occupy previously DAANES-administered territory, “[DAANES] also lost control of significant infrastructure sites in the Northeast part of Syria, including large gas and oil extraction facilities and large camps hosting ISIS prisoners. These had previously been strong negotiating cards and leverage with the central Syrian government and international actors, such as the US,” explains McGee. “Now, suddenly that is largely gone, so the Kurdish-led project finds itself at risk of disappearing.”
It is also unlikely, McGee believes, that the US or the EU will maintain their previous support. “From mid-2025, the EU announced a process to lift sanctions on Syria,” he points out. “I believe that many state officials, including those within the EU, see the current Syrian government as the most viable option for the formation of a stable Syrian state.”
As to why a stable Syria ranks above Kurdish rights in the EU’s priorities, McGee is pragmatic. “There are vested interests: to promote refugee returns from Europe, reduce further migration, and [counter] potential security threats to Europe through counter-terrorism collaboration,” lists McGee. “A stable Syria could also be an important starting point for expanded European trade in the Middle East region, not to mention the economic opportunities around reconstruction.”
“Ultimately, the EU considers pragmatic engagement with a strong central state in Syria as favourable,” McGee concludes. “But it is important that this engagement be such to promote a transition towards respect for human rights and dignity.”
The photograph used in this piece was taken by Thomas McGee, Max Weber Fellow at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the EUI, during his fieldwork in Syria. It was taken on the Freedom Bridge, formerly known as “President’s Bridge,” in Damascus.
Thomas McGee is an interdisciplinary scholar whose fieldwork and research are at the intersection of legal and social studies of the Middle East, with focus on Syria, Kurdish dynamics and the wider Levant region. He is the Regional Coordinator for the Middle-East and North Africa in the Global Citizenship Observatory project.