The retreat of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces is a huge win for the government in neighbouring Turkey, which sees the group as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
The PKK has waged a four-decade insurgency against the Turkish state, and Ankara views its affiliates in neighbouring Iraq and Syria as its number one security concern.
Developments in Syria also weigh on an ongoing PKK dissolution process in Turkey, which officials have said cannot move forward until all the group’s affiliates disarm, including those south of the border.
Changing dynamics favour Turkey
Turkey has gained considerable leverage in Syria since the fall of the Assad regime in 2024, and has provided Damascus with political, military and security backing, including training of Syrian personnel.
It had been pushing for the implementation of a deal signed last March that outlined a framework for the integration of the US-backed SDF into a central army controlled from the Syrian capital.
With the implementation of that agreement stalled, the Syrian government this month moved militarily against the SDF, which agreed to pull out from swathes of territory it held. Those areas hold most of Syria’s natural resources, including oil and gas reserves, dams and agricultural land.
“We wholeheartedly congratulate the Syrian government, the Syrian army, and the brotherly Syrian people for their successful operations in recent weeks,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday.
The SDF was established in 2015 under US patronage as a ground force to battle ISIS in Syria, and Washington spent a billion dollars over the next decade on funding the group. This formed a wedge in US-Ankara relations: Turkey criticised what it saw as direct American funding and support for what Ankara considered a terrorist group on its southern border, despite Washington designating the PKK as a terrorist organisation in 1997. The EU also designated the PKK in 2004.
But last year US President Donald Trump threw his weight behind Syria's new President, Ahmad Al Shara, encouraged by Mr Erdogan and Gulf leaders, with whom the American leader enjoys a good relationship. For the US, the SDF was no longer the most logical partner in operations to counter ISIS, which retains cells in Syria.
“Syria now has an acknowledged central government that has joined the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS [as its 90th member, in late 2025], signalling a westward pivot and co-operation with the US on counterterrorism,” the US Special Envoy to Syria, Tom Barrack − who is also Washington’s ambassador to Turkey − said this week.
“This shifts the rationale for the US-SDF partnership: the original purpose of the SDF as the primary anti-ISIS force on the ground has largely expired, as Damascus is now both willing and positioned to take over security responsibilities, including control of ISIS detention facilities and camps.”
Turkey is now closely watching manoeuvres over the remaining pockets of SDF-controlled territory in north-eastern Syria. According to a ceasefire agreement with Damascus, the SDF has until Saturday to agree on its integration into the Syrian state. But the area is the SDF's Kurdish heartland, and it is not clear if this will happen.
Officials in Ankara welcomed a decree from Mr Al Shara last week that declared Kurdish a national language in Syria, and formalised other rights for the country’s Kurdish ethnic minority, who make up around 10 per cent of the population. Turkish authorities have long denied taking issue with ethnic Kurds and say rather that they oppose the PKK’s militant separatism. Human rights groups have long accused Turkey of limiting Kurds' political and cultural expression.
The decree is “a significant indicator of a new vision for Syria, built on the foundations of equality and shared citizenship, encompassing all elements of the Syrian people,” Cuneyt Yuksel, an MP from Mr Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and head of the parliamentary justice commission, wrote in a statement posted on social media.
It remains unclear whether Turkey will enact similar laws for Kurds at home: Kurdish lawmakers have been pushing for formalising the status of the Kurdish language and other cultural rights as part of the PKK dissolution process. But such moves face significant opposition from nationalist Turkish groups, which see them as threats to national unity.
In recent days, Turkish authorities have carried out arrests of people it sees as supporting Kurdish separatism. Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said on Wednesday that 14 people had been detained after a group of people on the Syrian side of the border brought down a Turkish flag on the frontier. Security forces used tear gas and water cannon against a group who tried to cross into Syria, near the town of Nusaybin, photos from the scene showed.
More widely, the judiciary has started proceedings against nearly 400 people across the country for what Mr Tunc said were “provocations” under the pretext of “clashes between Syrian government forces and terrorist organisations”.
Turning point for PKK dissolution
The collapse of the SDF in Syria is a turning point for the PKK dissolution process in Turkey, which began last year when its jailed leader, Abdullah Ocalan, called on members to lay down arms and dissolve the group. Turkey’s support for Syrian military operations against the SDF has led to accusations that it is not serious about finding peace with Kurds.
“Looking at the statements of the Republican Alliance, it's as if they are managing the war from Turkey,” Tulay Hatimogullari, co-leader of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Equality and Democracy (DEM) Party said on Tuesday, referring to Mr Erdogan’s ruling coalition. She could not accept “calling the Kurds 'my brothers' on the one hand, and managing the war in Syria on the other”, she added.
At the same time, the integration of the SDF into the Syrian army, if fully implemented, may fulfil Turkey’s demand for the dissolution of what it sees as the PKK’s Syrian wing, thereby providing impetus for the process to move forward at home.
Murat Yesiltas, foreign policy director at Seta, a think tank close to the Turkish government, said it would “take time” for DEM to adapt to the new reality in Syria.
For Mr Erdogan’s AK Party, the process of the PKK’s dissolution, “is now truly beginning”, he wrote in an analysis on X. “It's hard to find a better opportunity than this to produce politics, be present in the field, and integrate society further into the process. This fast-paced political approach will be even more necessary in the future.”
As the Syrian army advanced into SDF-held territory in Syria, Ocalan confirmed that he still backed the PKK dissolution process, according to a statement after a two-and-a-half-hour meeting with DEM Party officials on Saturday.
The process is variously referred to in Turkey as a means to a “terror-free Turkey” by government supporters, and as a Peace and Democratic Society Process by Kurdish MPs. Ocalan is serving a life sentence in a remote island prison south of Istanbul, but has been allowed more frequent visits since calling for the PKK to disarm on February 27 last year.
At that time, Ocalan said he “emphasised the importance of taking the necessary steps to advance the process”.
During the meeting on Saturday, Ocalan stated his commitment to the Peace and Democratic Society Process and that “the perspective of February 27 remains valid”, DEM said. “He once again emphasised the importance of taking the necessary steps to advance the process.”
