SHARE ON













ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Damascus will not tolerate any mention of a separate region, federal or otherwise, in the north of the country, says a Syrian official, referring to the Kurds' recent announcement of a federation."Imposing federation and talking about northern Syria is not accepted," Basam Abu Abdullah, adviser to the Syrian Ministry of Information told Rudaw.Any system to run any part of the country should be voted for by the Syrian nation, Abdullah explained.He added that Kurds are not the only ones living in northern Syria. Aside from Kurds, he said, many other ethnic groups live in the north.The government advisor also said that "the Syrian government sees the Kurdish nation as an important and main element in Syria as they are important for Syria and have been effective and important for the history of Syria."Earlier this week, the Democratic Federal System of Northern Syria was declared by the founding members of the self-declared Kurdish enclave in northern Syria.Tensions between Kurds and the Syrian government have since escalated over the future of the Kurdish autonomous enclave, especially since the liberation of Aleppo by government forces earlier this month where the Kurds were in control of some neighborhoods.The government asked the Kurdish representatives to drop their demand for a federal system and hoist the Syrian flag on all government buildings and offices.And on Wednesday Kurdish authorities announced they had dropped the word Rojava--a Kurdish word for Western Kurdistan--from the official name of the federation of northern Syria.The Democratic Union Party (PYD), which is the main group in Syria’s Kurdistan and rules over that area, declared in mid-March that the region was a federal entity within Syria. The PYD has called the new region the Democratic Federal System of Northern Syria and said its government and society will remain polyethnic.Damascus has since rejected the declaration of the federal region and described the move as “unlawful action” that "jeopardizes the country’s territorial integrity."