Syrian government and Kurdish-led SDF fail to progress on military merger

A woody penned successful March stipulated that the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) would integrate with authorities institutions by the extremity of the year, but its implementation has since stalled.

Syrian authorities officials person held talks with the commandant of the main Kurdish-led unit successful the state implicit plans to merge it with the nationalist army, authorities media reported, adding that nary “tangible results” had been achieved.

The Kurdish-led and US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said successful a connection connected Sunday that a delegation led by apical commander Mazloum Abdi (also known arsenic Mazloum Kobani) held talks with authorities officials successful Damascus related to the subject integration process.

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A large sticking constituent has been whether the SDF would stay a cohesive portion successful the caller service oregon whether it would beryllium dissolved and its members individually absorbed. The radical has tens of thousands of fighters and is the main unit yet to beryllium absorbed into Syria’s military.

State TV said the gathering did not nutrient “tangible results” and that the sides agreed to clasp further meetings astatine a aboriginal date.

The enactment successful Damascus nether President Ahmed al-Sharaa inked a woody successful March with the SDF, which controls ample swathes of Syria’s oil-rich northbound and northeast. The Kurdish-led unit was to merge with the Syrian service by the extremity of 2025, but determination person been disagreements connected however it would happen.

The woody besides would bring each borderline crossings with Iraq and Turkiye, arsenic good arsenic airports and lipid fields successful the northeast, nether the cardinal government’s control. Prisons holding astir 9,000 suspected members of the ISIL (ISIS) radical are besides expected to travel nether authorities control.

Turkiye considers the SDF a “terrorist” organisation due to the fact that of its relation with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, oregon PKK, which has waged a decades-long equipped struggle connected its soil, though a peace process is present nether way.

Ankara sees the beingness of Kurdish forces connected its borderline arsenic a information menace and has publically called for them to beryllium integrated into the state, but not arsenic a azygous unit.

The SDF insists connected a decentralised strategy of governance that would let it to support its power successful the areas it controls. Tensions betwixt the SDF and the authorities – which opposes calls for decentralisation – person occasionally led to violence.

In precocious December, clashes broke out betwixt information forces and SDF fighters successful the bluish metropolis of Aleppo during a sojourn to Syria by Turkiye’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan.

Last month, Fidan urged the SDF to not beryllium an obstacle to Syria’s stableness and warned that patience with the radical was moving out.