A deal to solve Syria's Kurdish question took its first steps towards fruition on Monday, but observers expect it to fall short of ending divisions that came close to all-out conflict before the US intervened.
“The conflict has been postponed, but not ended,” said a Kurdish figure in contact with the Kurdish military leadership of the Syrian Democratic Forces.
The US-armed group has positioned itself as the defender of Syria's one million-strong Kurdish community since the civil war, although not all of the country's Kurds support the SDF. It has been fighting for survival since a government offensive stripped it of most of its holdings in the last three weeks.
US support started to wane after the fall of the regime of former president Bashar Al Assad in December 2024, which brought in a government with militant roots in Damascus that swiftly became friendly to Washington.
The Kurdish source said SDF leader Mazloum Abdi accepted the latest US version of the deal on Friday after consulting Massoud Barzani, an Iraqi Kurdish leader.
Mr Barzani urged Mr Abdi to “bide for time and avoid a war of attrition” that could involve Turkey. He made it clear to Mr Abdi “that he can only support him politically, not militarily”.
In 2017, a quixotic bid by Mr Barzani to establish a Kurdish state failed, after he could not secure US support and the central, pro-Iranian government encroached on the Kurdish heartland in northern Iraq. Mr Abdi had roots there in the Turkish Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), before returning to Syria at the start of the 2011 to 2024 civil war.
The new deal in Syria has contained fighting between the SDF on the one hand, and regular troops and tribal auxiliaries allied with the government of President Ahmad Al Shara, on the other. A former Al Qaeda operative, Mr Al Shara has become an ally of Washington, supplanting the SDF. Washington conceived the SDF during the Syrian civil war in 2015 as the main ground component in its war against ISIS in Syria.
Over the past three weeks, the SDF abandoned vast, Arab populated territories acquired during the civil war, rather than resist a government offensive that started in Aleppo and moved east. The SDF retreated to a mostly Kurdish pocket in the north-east, near Turkey. Ankara is the main regional backer of Mr Al Shara and wants the SDF destroyed.
In a matter of days, the cash-strapped government of Mr Al Shara restored central control over most of Syria's energy, commodities, water, and hydropower assets in the east. However, loyalist forces continued the offensive to encircle Kurdish areas and cut off their land link to Iraq.
The deal, which was the third in less than a year, repeated the SDF's commitment to integrate into the new state and surrender its civil administration to Damascus. It was vague on how much actual authority the government will have in areas that are heavily populated by Kurds.
On Monday, internal security forces, rather than the Syrian military, began entering the city of Kobani and parts of the province of Hasakah. The limited numbers of government forces that went in suggest that the SDF will remain unscathed, the source said.
The SDF has interpreted the deal as “undeclared decentralisation”, under which the bulk of the security forces will be comprised of Kurds who owe allegiance to the SDF but wear central government uniforms, the source said.
However, he expected the government to tighten the noose on the group by cutting off its supply lines from Iraq, and “penetrating” the Kurdish community to build up allies to replace the SDF – possibly setting the scene for renewed conflict.
He said the government “has held off its horses for now” because in the last several weeks north-eastern Kurds took up weapons en mass to defend their communities, particularly against the tribal auxiliaries allied with the government.
On Monday, about 15 armoured vehicles and police cars carrying about 100 Syrian internal security personnel were posted to the outskirts of Kobani in preparation to enter the city, The National witnessed, marking the first phase of the deal. Videos circulating online showed similar convoys heading towards the cities of Hasakah and Qamishli in Hasakah governorate, north-east Syria.
A security source in Jordan involved in Syrian affairs said the SDF did not expect the American abandonment “so fast” and that the central government mainly has to avoid initiating bloodshed to wean Kurds off the SDF.
“If things go smoothly Al Shara will integrate the SDF as three Kurdish units in the military. He also has to show that he will not be selective in giving out rights for Kurds. Any Kurdish Syrian who wants a passport must be welcome,” the source said. A January 17 decree by Mr Al Shara recognised citizenship rights for Syria's Kurds, an issue that has been unresolved since the 1960s.
