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Calls for international recognition of semi-autonomous Kurdish enclave from controversial US religious rights body raise eyebrows

KURDISH officials have endorsed calls for official international recognition of its semi-autonomous region in northern Syria from the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).

Its chair, the conservative Nadine Maenza, made the remarks during a three-day tour of the Autonomous Area of North East Syria (AANES) which ended on Friday.

She said the AANES should be exempted from the US Caesar sanctions on Syria, calling for the body to be recognised by the international community as a local government while praising its progressive politics on gender and religious tolerance.

Her stance, which she has voiced on a number of occasions, and its uncritical endorsement by Kurdish officials, has raised eyebrows given her promotion of reactionary positions on LGBT, women’s rights and other issues.

Ms Maenza is the president of former Republican senator Rick Santorum’s Patriot Voices, a right-wing political action committee which lobbies against same-sex marriage and abortion in the US.

She was appointed to USCIRF by former president Donald Trump.

USCIRF and its commissioners have been accused by critics of driving a homophobic and discriminatory agenda and it often levels its criticism at governments of countries where the US is agitating for regime change.

The Southern Poverty Law Centre slammed the 2018 appointment of Tony Perkins, who they said holds far-right views and has associations with the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist organisations.

It branded his evangelical organisaton, the Family Research Council, a “hate group.”

Mr Perkins has chaired USCIRF in the past and remains a commissioner. Other former commissioners include John Bolton and convicted war criminal Elliott Abrams.

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