Kurdish militia cedes control to regime in Aleppo and north-east Syria

Ideologically opposed sides signed deal last month to bring Kurdish-run zones into post-Al Assad order

Fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces are still hoping for some autonomy for Kurdish areas of the country. EPA

Kurdish militias have ceded a significant degree of control over two strategic areas in Syria under a deal with the new regime to join the post-Bashar Al Assad order, sources said on Sunday, in a development that strengthens the fledging central authorities, but major issues remain unresolved between the two sides.

Syria's President Ahmad Al Shara and the country's most powerful Kurdish figure, militia chief Mazloum Abdi, signed an agreement on March 10 to end hostilities in Aleppo and the resource-rich eastern part of the country, and bring the two areas under the control of the new authorities. Mr Abdi heads the US-backed, mostly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces, which played a main role in the American-led fight against ISIS.

In Aleppo, government forces started joint patrols on Sunday with SDF units in Sheikh Maqsoud, the main Kurdish neighbourhood of the city, the official Syrian news agency said. An SDF component, called the People's Protection Units, began a partial withdrawal from the neighbourhood towards eastern Syria this month.

Sheikh Maqsoud lies on a hill that overlooks the main road to Turkey. The joint patrols aim at "strengthening security in the area", the agency reported.

On the edge of Aleppo governorate, government forces on Saturday took control of the Tishreen Dam on the Euphrates river, which had been in SDF hands for a decade. Attacks in the first two month this year by the Syrian National Army, a Turkish backed militia allied with Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS), failed to dislodge the Kurdish fighters from the dam.

An official in the SDF told The National that US forces were briefly at the dam on Saturday to ensure implementation of the deal, reached after talks between US and Turkish officials in Ankara. The Syrian technicians running the dam will remain but will be augmented by new staff from Damascus. The Syrian National Army has also withdrawn from the vicinity of the dam under the agreement, the official said.

Kurdish issue

The Kurdish issue has emerged as one of the most complex in the country since HTS, an armed group formerly affiliated with Al Qaeda, led the rebel offensive that toppled Mr Al Assad and installed the new government in Damascus. HTS is ideologically opposed to the secular SDF, which had given up its project for a separate canton in Syria but is still hoping for some autonomy for Kurdish areas of the country.

Asked about the wider deal between Mr Al Shara and Mr Abdi, the official said joint committees have been meeting to resolve thorny issues. Among them are SDF integration in the new army being set up by HTS, securing the east against ISIS and composition of local government that would replace the SDF-dominated administration. "None of these issues have been decided," he said.

The Kurdish question has emerged as a key issue for Syria's President Ahmed Al Shara as he seeks to cement control of the country. Reuters

Unlike the autonomous Kurdish zone in northern Iraq, which is overwhelmingly populated by Kurds, Aleppo and eastern Syria are mixed between Arabs and Kurds. Kurdish people constituted 10 per cent of Syria's population in 2010, the last year before the revolt against Al Assad family rule.

Kurdish militia predecessors of the SDF helped the former regime crush the peaceful protests that comprised the initial phase of the revolt. They also helped it capture rebel areas of the country in the subsequent civil war.

An alliance with the US helped Mr Abdi acquire much territory in the east, inside Aleppo and in its countryside. But these territorial gains have been diminishing since the fall of Mr Al Assad, with a large number of Arab fighters in the SDF deserting the group and joining Turkish-backed forces. However, the SDF still controls major territory in the east, near the border with Turkey, which account for most of Syria's oil and commodities production.

Turkey regards the SDF as a major security threat because of the group's links with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which launched attacks on Turkey from Syria in the 1980s and 1990s. In 2011, the PKK started returning to Syria from its base in northern Iraq.

"Shara, Turkey, America and us want to solve the issue of the east peacefully," the SDF official said. "It is all now with the committees."