Syria’s Foreign Minister Asaad Al Shibani and the commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces Mazloum Abdi met US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Munich on Friday.
The meeting marked one of the highest-level encounters between the two Syrian leaders and a US official since the war in areas held by Kurdish-majority forces ended with an integration agreement.
“A picture is worth a thousand words – a new beginning,” wrote US envoy Tom Barrack on X in a post with a picture of the meeting, held during the Munich Security Conference.
According to Syrian state media, the meeting addressed “key local and regional developments, with an emphasis on Syria’s unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity”.
“The US side reaffirmed Washington’s support for the Syrian government, the recent integration agreement with the Syrian Democratic Forces, and Syria’s efforts to combat ISIS,” it added.
The SDF confirmed that the discussions focused on the issue of integration and “guaranteeing the rights of all Syrian components in the political process, particularly the Kurds and the Druze, as well as the importance of continuing the fight against ISIS”.
Syria’s new leadership has repeatedly said it is determined to reintegrate territory held by the Kurdish-led SDF into the state. A decade of SDF rule over Syria’s most resource-rich areas in the Euphrates River basin ended as pro-government forces advanced last month into eastern Syria without meeting any significant resistance.
In recent days, Syrian troops have pulled back from the outskirts of Hasakah. Water and electricity have partially be restored in Kobani, though the city remains encircled. About 160,000 people displaced by last month’s battles are sheltering in schools and mosques, according to UN estimates, further straining already scarce resources.
Kurdish officials have set the lifting of the siege on Kobani as a condition for the success of the ceasefire.
Mr Barrack has previously said that the SDF’s role in Syria has largely “expired” after the Syrian government began leading the anti-ISIS campaign in the country.
Iraq has agreed to take in thousands of ISIS prisoners from detention centres and camps in Syria, and has begun the arduous task of processing those people.
Earlier this week, US troops left the remote Al Tanf base in the Syrian desert, more than a decade after it was established, and were replaced by Syrian army units – a move that would have been unthinkable until former president Bashar Al Assad's regime was toppled in December 2024 and replaced by a government led by President Ahmad Al Shara.
