Politics

KDP-Syria elects new president after party congress

Twenty-six members of the party’s central committee were elected as well on Thursday, a statement from the KDP-Syria announced.

Kurdistan 24 2023/06/15 15:16

Mohammad Ismael, the newly elected KDP-Syria secretary, is pictured during an interview with Kurdistan 24 in Erbil. (Photo: Kurdistan 24)

Syria KDP-Syria Mohammad Ismael Rojava Syria

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The top officials of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Syria on Thursday elected Mohammad Ismael as the Kurdish party’s new secretary following its 12th congress in Erbil.

Twenty-six members of the party’s central committee were elected as well on Thursday, an informed source told Kurdistan 24.

The election came as the party on Saturday held its 12th congress in Erbil for the second time. The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) President Masoud Barzani attended the congress as well.

Having been the oldest Kurdish party in Syria’s northeast, known as Rojava among the Kurds, the KDP-Syria’s political goal is a decentralized and democratic Syria, in which its components are entitled to self-determination.

The party has been the biggest component of the Kurdish National Council, a grouping of sixteen parties in Rojava as of 2012, calling for a democratic and federal Syria. The party's headquarters is based in Rojava's Qamishli.

Born in 1958 in Derik, Ismael, a graduate of chemistry from the University of Damascus, joined the party’s ranks in 1975. He became a member of the KDP-Syria politburo in 2002. He has been known as the “engineer” of unifying the Kurdish parties in Syria.

Following the party’s 2014 congress, he served in numerous positions, including managing the political group’s foreign relations.