A Syrian interim government delegation led by Deputy Interior Minister Abdul Qader Tahan visited Sari Kani in Hasaka province on Tuesday to “assess security needs,” according to the state-run SANA news agency.
The delegation met with commanders and officials of armed groups in the town and discussed their integration into the government’s General Security forces.
Mohammed Haco, a member of the Sari Kani Displaced People Committee, told Rudaw that approximately 300 people have signed up to join the force, but “only 50 are natives of Sari Kani, while the remaining 250 are Arab settlers.”
“Two weeks ago, village chieftains began taking the IDs of Arabs brought to Sari Kani, even though they were not originally from here. Their IDs were requested, and their place of birth was changed to show that they were from Sari Kani, so the public could be told that they had formed a security force of young men from the region,” Haco said.
“But we, as people of Sari Kani, know each other very well; whether we are Kurds, Arabs, or Assyrians, we recognize each other.”
Haco lamented that “very few” of the town’s original inhabitants have signed up for the security force, citing a lack of trust that their demands will be met and that the town’s displaced residents will be returned.
Turkey and Turkish-backed Syrian militia groups seized the Kurdish towns of Sari Kani and nearby Gire Spi (Tal Abyad) in a military offensive - dubbed Operation Peace Spring - against the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in 2019.
The offensive sent hundreds of thousands of the area’s residents fleeing into Kurdish-held areas in the northwest as well as the Kurdistan Region. Ankara has been accused of bringing in Arab settlers to take over their lands.
According to Haco, the move to register residents not originally from Sari Kani into the town’s security force constitutes a threat to the region’s demographic makeup. He said the solution lies in forming a security force that includes the town’s original components.
“We truly want to form an internal security force from all components in the region, and establish a civil council in which Kurds, Arabs, Assyrians, and Armenians - in other words, the original components of Sari Kani - will participate,” Haco said.
“The move … represents a clear threat of further demographic change,” he stressed.
Hussein Omar contributed to this report.
