Îlham Ehmed

Îlham Ehmed is a Syrian-Kurdish politician in Rojava in Northern Syria. She is co-chairperson of the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), the umbrella organisation of secular, democratic, non-Islamist opposition in Syria. She is a senior member of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) and a member of the executive committee of the Movement for a Democratic Society (TEV-DEM) coalition.

Ehmed is particularily outspoken on the aim of a programmatically polyethnic character of a future Syria. At the start of the Northern Raqqa offensive in November 2016, she was quoted saying that "such an administration could provide a good example for democratic change in Raqqa, especially that the city has been for years a de facto capital for the ISIS terrorist group. This accomplishment would be a major change in the overall situation in Syria, and would help the country move towards stability, democratic change. Raqqa will be an example for the whole country."