REPRESENTATIVES of Kurdish groups in Syria called at the weekend for the country to become a democratic state that gives Kurds their ethnic rights following the fall of Bashar al-Assad.

Some 400 people representing Syria’s main Kurdish groups met in the north-eastern city of Qamishli on Saturday to unify their positions a month after Syria’s new rulers signed a breakthrough deal with Kurdish-led authorities in the north-east.

Kurds in Syria were marginalised during the 54-year rule of the Assad family, with many denied citizenship and wrongly categorised as Arabs.

Since the fall of Mr Assad in early December, Syria’s Kurds have been trying to keep the cultural gains they have achieved in their north-eastern enclave.

A statement issued at the end of Saturday’s meeting, attended by groups including the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, the Democratic Union Party (PYD) and the Kurdish National Council, called for a “fair and comprehensive” solution for the Kurdish cause in a “democratic and decentralised country.”

They said that the constitution should “guarantee the national rights of the Kurdish people and abide by international laws for human rights and women’s rights.”

The statement added that women should actively participate in state institutions in Syria.

The groups also called for post-Assad Syria to give equal rights to all its citizens “without marginalising anyone.”

The meeting was attended by representatives of Kurdish groups from Turkey and Iraq.

Kurds made up 10 per cent of Syria’s pre-war population of 23 million. Kurdish officials have been saying that they don’t want full autonomy with their own government and parliament, merely decentralisation and the freedom to run their day-to-day affairs.