Îlham Ehmed


Îlham Ehmed, also rendered as Îlham Ahmed, was born in Afrin, the Rojava district in Syria. and is a Syrian-Kurdish politician from the Democratic Union Party, who is currently the co-president of the Executive Council of the de facto autonomous Rojava. Until July 2018, she was a co-chair of the Syrian Democratic Council, an umbrella organisation of secular, democratic, non-Islamist opposition in Syria that acts as Rojava's legislature. She is a member of the executive committee of the Movement for a Democratic Society coalition.

Political career

Ehmed is particularly outspoken on the aim of a programmatically polyethnic character of a future Syria. At the start of the Northern Raqqa offensive in November 2016, she was quoted saying that "such an administration could provide a good example for democratic change in Raqqa, especially that the city has been for years a de facto capital for the ISIS terrorist group. This accomplishment would be a major change in the overall situation in Syria, and would help the country move towards stability, democratic change. Raqqa will be an example for the whole country."
She took part in negotiations with the Syrian Government in Damascus concerning services that shall be provided also in the areas governed by the SDC in July 2018.
Along with this, she is also a member of the Syrian Women's Initiative for Peace and Democracy. She has been fighting in the struggle for Kurdish freedom since the 1990s. Her main goal as Executive President of the Syrian Democratic Council is to have a decentralized state. In this decentralized state she pushes for local civilian councils and governments that guarantee the rights of different Syrian groups. This includes the freedom of expression, gender equality, etc. She also wants the rights of the Kurdish people to be guaranteed in the Syrian Constitution.

Turkeys invasion into Rojava

Before conflict with Turkey this was the most stable and peaceful region of Syria and she was the most recognizable and central figure within it. After US President Donald Trump declared that the United States would withdraw its troops from the territories governed by the SDC in December 2018, and Turkey threatened to attack, she travelled to Paris with SDC co-chair Riad Darar to talk with the French government about further cooperation with the French troops stationed in the areas governed by the SDC. This left Îlham Ehmed and the SDC vulnerable to an attack from Turkey on Northeastern Syria. The SDC would be prone to attack from Turkey because the belief of Syrian ties to the People's Protection Units, which is believed to have ties by Turkey, to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party. Ahmed says, “Because Turkey is a NATO state, they designated the PKK as a terrorist organization.” She finishes by saying that, “The PKK never targeted the interests of the United States or any other NATO country and it is only an issue for Turkey.” This means that when the United States withdraws its troops Turkey no longer has any allied governments standing in its way of attacking the SDC; As they consider them terrorists because of the belief that the SDC supports the PKK. This invasion also is susceptible to ethnic cleansing as the belief links the SDC and PKK to the Kurds. According to Ahmed not only will the Turks be attacking the Kurds, but there are other ethnicities in the area including Syriacs, Arabs, and Christians. She evens says that these people are the majority in the area. After negotiations with the French Government, French troops ended up staying in Syria.
October 2019 was the second time that President Trump ordered troops to withdraw from Syria. Following Turkey invaded Rojava and 250 people were killed and over 130,000 displaced. Many of those that were displaced had to leave their ancestral homes. This occurred despite a cease-fire was made between the Turks and Kurds backed by the United States and Russia. According to Ahmed the Turks were not following the cease-fire as there were some leaked videos that show the Syrian National Army mutilating a body of a Kurdish fighter. Along with this she says that some have leadership from the Islamic State that the SDC worked hard to eliminate with American help. Turkey has also violated humanitarian rights by the Ahrar al-Sharqiya militia, which Turkish forces back, brutally murdering Hevrin Khalaf. She was a Kurdish politician who was traveling along route M4. Her body was found with dozens of bullet holes, lacerations, and her skin was detached from her scalp when she was dragged by her hair from the car. The cease-fire did however calm the invasion of Turkey and left time for them to think about the American troops that have entered back into Northern Syria. The cease-fire also brought up the question of possibly putting 200 troops back into eastern Syria to protect oil fields. Also this happened to prevent the Islamic State from reentering the territories that were recently taken.

Ties With the United States

As discussed in the previous section Îlham Ehmed also has some issues with the White House, as Trump has been withdrawing and reentering troops somewhat frequently. As this has happened twice in the last ten months, she has become wary of United States assistance militarily. Since the battle against the Islamic State has started the Ehmed and the SDC has lost 11,000 men and 24,000 have been wounded. With the withdrawal of American troops and the bloodshed because of this, Ehmed has called upon the United States to help once again. She asks that the United States: