London, 8 April 2011 

The Equal Rights Trust welcomes Syria’s move to grant citizenship to ethnic Kurds who have been stateless for five decades. This is a positive step which if implemented properly will resolve one of the most entrenched cases of statelessness in the world, and allow hundreds of thousands of people to fully enjoy the benefits of citizenship for the first time.

The Government-operated Syrian Arab News Agency reported on 7 April 2011 that President Bashar al-Assad issued Legislative Decree No. 49 (the Decree), securing Syrian nationality for those Kurds registered as “Hasaka foreigners”. The Decree, which is one of a series of measures taken by the President to appease the public, was issued a week after Kurdish protestors joined widespread anti-government demonstrations in Hasaka.