Deal with Damascus shifts Syria’s Kurdish-led SDF toward integration after clashes

Ceasefire ends latest clashes as merger terms are published

Syria’s Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces agreed to merge into Syria’s national army and police forces after days of clashes with the government, with the Associated Press reporting that a ceasefire was announced Sunday night and that the latest round of fighting had ended. Under the terms shown by state media, SDF fighters would integrate as individuals rather than as a whole force, and the agreement also calls for the transfer of names of SDF commanders for high military and managerial roles.

State media aired footage of President Ahmad al-Sharaa signing and holding the agreement, the AP said. The report said Mazloum Abdi, the SDF chief who was scheduled to meet al-Sharaa in Damascus, was not seen but that Abdi’s signature appeared on the document. Al-Sharaa told journalists that Abdi could not travel because of bad weather and was expected in Damascus on Monday, according to the AP.

Fighting shrinks SDF footprint to Hassakeh

The AP said the SDF suffered a major defeat over the weekend when Syrian government forces captured wide areas in territory in the northeast that had been under SDF control after deadly clashes. With fighters cornered in Hassakeh province, the AP report said the latest government victory could mark the end of Kurdish ambitions for an autonomous region in northeast Syria they call Rojava, or Western Kurdistan.

The AP reported that after the fighting, the SDF would only control Hassakeh, where there is a large Kurdish community. It also described a sequence in which deadly clashes in Aleppo led the SDF to evacuate three neighborhoods it had controlled for years, before government offensives expanded and ended Sunday with government forces controlling much of the northern province of Raqqa and the oil-rich province of Deir el-Zour along the Iraqi border.

From decade of fighting Islamic State to negotiating with Damascus

The AP said that over the past decade, the SDF had been the most effective force in the battle against the Islamic State group in Syria. The report said the alliance was founded in 2015 with U.S. backing and included ethnic Arab, Kurdish and Turkmen fighters, as well as a main Christian militia in northeast Syria known as the Syriac Military Council, which includes Assyrians.

While the AP said the alliance included multiple components, it reported that the SDF was led by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, known as the YPG, and that the YPG’s dominant role remained a concern for many Sunni Arab factions and their regional backers. The AP also reported that internal clashes occurred on several occasions, and that many rebel factions that fought former President Bashar Assad’s forces after 2011 opposed the SDF, viewing it as a secessionist force.

The report said Ankara has long viewed the YPG as an extension of the Kurdish PKK, which has waged an insurgency in Turkey. After Assad’s ouster in December 2024, the AP said relations between the new rulers led by al-Sharaa and the SDF remained cold, until March, when SDF chief Mazloum Abdi arrived in Damascus and signed a deal with al-Sharaa.

March deal and October and January merger discussions

The AP said the March deal included a provision that the SDF would merge into the Syrian army by the end of 2025, while adding that significant disagreements remained about how the process would happen. It reported that in October, Abdi told the Associated Press the SDF had agreed in principle with the government on a plan to merge fighters as a cohesive group into the national army.

The AP said Abdi visited Damascus in early January to discuss the merger, with state media reporting at the time that no “tangible results” had been achieved. Soon after, deadly clashes broke out in Aleppo, leading to the SDF evacuations described in the report, and the fighting later expanded into a broader government offensive, culminating in Sunday’s government control of much of Raqqa and Deir el-Zour.

New language decree follows negotiations, ceasefire follows it

The AP said al-Sharaa also issued a decree making Kurdish an official language in Syria alongside Arabic and adopting the Kurdish new year as a national holiday. The report said the move was viewed as an attempt to appease the Kurdish minority, and it reported that the new ceasefire was announced two days later.

The AP added that the SDF, once estimated at about 40,000 fighters, would most likely dissolve in the near future as al-Sharaa boosts his authority following deadly sectarian clashes in March. The report cited a continuing role for the SDF in controlling prisons and camps, even as the merger terms shift control of security and legal affairs toward the government.

Prisons, camps and a 14-point ceasefire

The AP reported that a major mission the SDF continues to have is the control of prisons where the report said about 9,000 Islamic State members had been held for years without trial. It also said the SDF controls al-Hol and Roj camps in Hassakeh, where it said tens of thousands of people—mostly women and children linked to the Islamic State group—are housed.

The report said the group released a statement Monday that gunmen were attacking the Shaddadeh prison, which it described as holding thousands of IS members. It said the group later said its fighters repelled several attacks and that the prison was out of the control of its fighters.

Under what the AP described as the ceasefire’s 14 points, it said the authorities and protection forces that run prisons and camps would merge into the government, which would become “fully in charge” of the legal and security affairs of jails and camps, and the AP said no deadline was set.

The AP reported that the Syrian government, according to the deal, is committed to fighting Islamic State as Syria is now a member of the U.S.-led coalition fighting the extremists.