LONDON(RAHNUMA): Syrian authorities have since May received applications from 10,516 Kurdish individuals seeking citizenship under a presidential decree addressing the rights of the Kurdish community.
The ministry of interior released the first batch of names of hundreds of Syrian Kurds who applied for citizenship interviews in the Hasakah and Raqqa governorates, the Syrian Arab News Agency reported on Sunday.
There were 2,892 family applications, representing 10,516 individuals, submitted for citizenship at centers in the cities of Damascus, Aleppo, Hasakah, Raqqa, and Deir Ezzor since May.
In January, Syrian President Ahmad Al-Sharaa issued a decree restoring the citizenship of Kurds and formally recognizing their language and national holiday, Nowruz.
The move was part of broader efforts to improve relations with the Syrian Democratic Forces, which had signed an agreement with the Syrian government to integrate under Damascus.
Amnesty International estimated in 2005 that between 200,000 and 360,000 Kurds were stateless, because they were descendants of those rendered without nationality by the 1962 census.
