Syria’s de facto leader Ahmad Al Shara has met representatives of the mainly Kurdish, US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces as the interim government attempts to integrate competing militias into a new national army and establish order.
The talks in Damascus, described as “positive” by a member of Mr Al Shara’s rebel group Hayat Tahrir Al Sham, which leads the interim government, come amid heavy clashes between the SDF militia and Turkish-backed groups in northern Syria’s Manbij.
Mr Al Shara, better known by his former nom de guerre Abu Mohammad Al Jawlani, faces a struggle to restore order after toppling the Bashar Al Assad regime on December 8, ending a 13-year civil war but ushering in a host of new security challenges.
He has pledged to disarm militias, including rebel groups that assisted his forces in toppling the regime, or fold them into a new state armed force. Some, such as the Turkistan Islamic Party, have extremist leanings. Other militias, like the smaller Syrian Free Army, did not directly co-operate with his forces and work closely with the US. In the north, there is an array of groups backed by Turkey.
Sources told news agency AFP the talks were a "preliminary meeting to lay the foundations for future dialogue", adding that both sides had agreed "to continue these meetings to reach future understandings".
The SDF, an umbrella organisation comprising the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and a smaller number of Sunni Arab fighters, was formed during the 2014-2019 war against ISIS, backed by the US and other western powers.
With air support and a small number of US advisers, the force pushed ISIS out of parts of eastern and northern Syria, including in some Kurdish-majority areas such as Kobani. It formed an autonomous area of governance, partially protected by a small US force of about 1,800 troops who could call on significant air power when attacked.
But it became a quasi-occupying force in parts of some governorates including former ISIS stronghold Raqqa, Aleppo and Deir Ezzor which borders Iraq, stirring tensions with local communities.
The SDF had also been at loggerheads with Iran-backed militias which were trying to secure weapons supply routes to Lebanese militants Hezbollah until Tehran's proxies were recently evacuated from Syria. In Manbij, a majority-Arab town taken over by the SDF during the war against ISIS, it has been forced out by Turkish-backed militias.
These are known as the Syrian National Army, mainly comprising religiously conservative former rebels who occupy several Kurdish-majority areas on the border, armed and funded by Turkey, and having expanded through Turkish-backed military operations against the Kurds since 2016.
Ankara considers the SDF to be an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), an insurgent group considered a terrorist organisation by the US and EU, which says it is fighting for Kurdish autonomy in Turkey.
But there are fears new fighting could destabilise the country's east, where the SDF controls Al Hol, a camp housing about 6,000 people, including wives and children of jailed ISIS fighters. In two camps, Al Hol and Roj, the SDF holds nearly 40,000 people linked to ISIS, including dangerous fighters.
In the wake of Mr Al Assad’s fall, fighting escalated sharply as both sides sought to secure or expand territory after the former president’s forces and Iranian proxy groups collapsed in disarray. The SDF recently lost Manbij to the SNA and has launched a counter-attack to retake the city.
On Tuesday, Turkish-backed fighters killed three pro-Kurdish security personnel in Syria's second city Aleppo, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor.
On Sunday, Mr Al Shara said that like other militias, the Kurdish forces would be integrated into a new state armed force. "Weapons must be in the hands of the state alone. Whoever is armed and qualified to join the defence ministry, we will welcome them," he said. "Under these terms and conditions, we will open a negotiations dialogue with the SDF ... to perhaps find an appropriate solution."
