QAMISHLI: Syria’s Kurdish authorities said Thursday they were delaying controversial municipal elections which prompted threats from arch-foe Turkiye and concerns from their main ally the United States.
The elections, originally scheduled for June 11 and now postponed “until at least August,” would be the first to extend to all seven regions under the semi-autonomous region’s control, home to both Arabs and Kurds, since Syria’s fragmentation during its civil war.
The elections commission said they delayed the vote “in response to requests from political parties and alliances” who complained the campaign period was too short.
Local officials and candidates insist the elections are crucial for local representation and will help improve public services in the region.
But their detractors have accused them of separatism and monopolizing power or voiced concerns that the conditions for fair and free elections are nonexistent in Syria’s Kurdish-held northeast.
Around 18 parties, including the ruling Democratic Union Party (PYD), as well as independents are expected to run in the vote, PYD co-chair Saleh Muslim told AFP.
He said the elections had been delayed for “internal” reasons, but added “perhaps the elections commission also took the political circumstances into account.”
Syria’s Kurds, who have suffered decades of marginalization and oppression by Syria’s ruling Baath party, have come to rule about a quarter of Syria, including Arab majority areas, after government forces withdrew.
The armed wing of the PYD is the powerful People’s Protection Units (YPG) that dominates the Syrian Democratic Forces — the region’s de facto army.
The Kurdish-led forces spearheaded the fight to dislodge the Daesh group from its last Syrian territorial bastion in 2019 with American support.
But Turkiye views the PYD and YPG as offshoots of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which it has outlawed as a “terrorist” group.
Ankara, which controls two border strips in Syria’s north, views the upcoming polls as evidence of separatism.
Since 2016, Turkiye has carried out successive ground operations to expel Kurdish forces from border areas of northern Syria, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatening to launch a new operation to prevent the election from taking place.
He described the vote as an “aggressive action against the territorial integrity” of Ankara and Damascus “under the pretext of an election.”
On Thursday, Turkish state television TRT welcomed the decision to delay the vote, adding “Turkiye’s position has borne fruit.”
The Kurdish polls have also drawn the ire of their main backer Washington, which counts Turkiye as a key NATO ally.
“Any elections that occur in Syria should be free, fair, transparent, and inclusive,” said US State Department spokesman Vedant Patel in a statement last week.
“We don’t think that the conditions for such elections are in place in NE Syria,” he said, adding the US had urged local authorities “not to proceed with elections.”

JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said Thursday that a soldier had been killed in the north where troops are engaged in near-daily border clashes with Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
The soldier “fell fighting in the north” on Wednesday, the military said in a statement, after two explosive drones were launched from Lebanon against the Israeli town of Hurfeish.
The army did not specify the exact location of the death of the soldier, whom it identified on its website as Staff Sergeant Refael Kauders, aged 39.
The military correspondent of the Times of Israel newspaper reported that the soldier was killed in a drone attack which also left nine other troops wounded, one of the seriously.
Wednesday’s fatality takes the toll to at least 15 soldiers and 11 civilians killed on the Israeli side of the border with Lebanon, according to the military, since clashes with Hezbollah began after the war with Hamas broke out in Gaza on October 7.
In Lebanon, the violence has killed at least 455 people, mostly fighters but including 88 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
Since the Gaza war broke out the Israeli military has lost 645 soldiers, including 294 in its campaign against Hamas in the Palestinian territory.
The war in Gaza began after Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7 that resulted in the deaths of 1,194 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
The militants also abducted 251 people, Israelis and foreigners, 120 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, including 41 the military says are dead.
Israel has vowed to eliminate Hamas and its bombardment and ground offensive in Gaza have so far killed at least 36,586 people, also mostly civilians, according to the territory’s health ministry.