Politics

Fading hopes that the SDF will agree to Syrian integration

The autonomous Kurdish-led group in Syria’s north-east has been protected by the US for a decade, but the move now is towards integration with Damascus. Unfortunately, the SDF has not got the memo.

Reuters

Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters sit on a vehicle in the north of Raqqa city, Syria.

Fading hopes that the SDF will agree to Syrian integration

Charles Lister

last update on 11 Jul 2025

In the seven months since Syria’s former president Bashar al-Assad was overthrown, 78 foreign governments and multinational bodies have descended on Damascus to engage with Syria’s new interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa and his transition team.

No post-conflict country in history has come close to matching such a sudden and large-scale surge of diplomatic engagement. Considering the consequences associated of half a century of Assad dictatorship and 13 years of debilitating conflict, the progress Syria has achieved in these past months is extraordinary.

Almost all sanctions and designations imposed on the country over the past five decades have been removed or waived, while Syria has been swiftly reintegrated into regional and global multilateral bodies. To illustrate this, President al-Sharaa is expected to address the UN General Assembly in September, making him the first Syrian leader to do so since 1967.

Land of opportunity

On the economic front, Syria’s economy is breathing its first oxygen in many years. More than $20bn in contracts and memoranda of understanding have been signed in recent weeks, with companies headquartered in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Türkiye, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, France, and the United States.

Syria’s first exports to the US are currently en route by sea; American commercial 4G and 5G telecommunications infrastructure is now integrated into Syria’s SyriaTel network, and at least four US-owned oil, gas, and electricity companies are looking to jump into Syria.

Notwithstanding the numerous challenges associated with a post-conflict transition—including transitional justice, peace and reconciliation, disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR), and ethnic and sectarian protection and representation—Syria is in a remarkably good place.

AFP — Ahmed al-Sharaa and SDF leader Mazloum Abdi during the signing of the agreement to integrate the SDF into state institutions on March 10, 2025.

While violence persists, it has fallen to all-time low levels in recent weeks. The anti-government insurgency that began on the country’s Mediterranean coast in January has not conducted an attack in two months. Islamic State (IS) remains a serious threat, but intelligence-sharing and operational coordination between Damascus, Washington, and other international forces is now a well-oiled machine.

Fly in the ointment

As Syria’s transition stabilises and reintegrates into the world, however, one major structural domestic challenge remains: the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), based in Syria’s north-east. Despite signing a framework agreement in March, sporadic talks between the SDF and Damascus have made little if any meaningful progress. The ceasefire in north-eastern Aleppo remains in place, and SDF-extracted oil is being sold to Damascus, but trust remains low.

As Syria's transition stabilises and reintegrates into the world, however, one major structural domestic challenge remains: the SDF

Although mostly unreported, the SDF has repeatedly sought to redeploy forces and heavy weaponry to frontlines with government forces in north-eastern Aleppo, despite the ceasefire requiring it to remain demilitarised. US forces have, at times, been forced to intervene to turn SDF convoys back.

Sources in Raqqa and Hasakeh continue to report extensive SDF military tunnel construction, and in the past six months, more than 100 Arab men and several women have been detained by SDF forces after their relatives defected to join government forces. The death of two Arab children at the hands of SDF forces in recent weeks has fuelled tension between the SDF and north-east Syria's Arab communities.

During a US-facilitated visit by an Interior Ministry delegation to Qamishli and Hasakeh to inspect school examinations on 29 June, SDF and Autonomous Administration officials repeatedly lectured their government counterparts on democratic confederalism and decentralisation, with government officials twice invited to sit below portraits of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan for meetings where photographers were present.

Engaging in antagonism

On 19 June, the SDF's Autonomous Administration unexpectedly announced that it had established a 'general administration' to run Qamishli Airport, angering the Syrian General Aviation Authority in Damascus that declared any such move would "violate international law." Such antagonism and disputes serve to illustrate just how far away a comprehensive deal remains between the two parties.

Delil Souleiman/AFP — Mazloum Abdi, commander-in-chief of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), speaks during the pan-Kurdish conference in Qamishli, north-eastern Syria, on April 26, 2025.

In an effort to push things forward, a landmark summit was held in Damascus this week, bringing Syria's government and the SDF together, alongside the American and French Special Envoys, Thomas Barrack and Jean-Baptiste Faivre. But despite considerable effort, the summit also made no real progress.

According to sources involved, the SDF delegation insisted on maintaining its own independent military structure, adding that it would only integrate into Syria's military if it remained permanently deployed in the north-east, under its own command, and still known as the SDF. The Autonomous Administration meanwhile demanded that its structures remain fully intact, with control over governance and local administration.

These conditions angered the government delegation and hugely frustrated the US and French mediators. Finally, the SDF's request to extend the original deadline for a deal (the end of 2025) seemed to confirm that it had no real interest in an agreement. After the meeting, Thomas Barrack was blunt, accusing the SDF of being "slow in accepting" that it needed to do a deal, adding that "federalism… doesn't work… there is only one road, that road is to Damascus (and) we are running out of time".

Prioritising consolidation

Barrack praised Damascus, calling its efforts "incredibly enthusiastic" and "generous in figuring out a way to align interests". His comments, together with his dual status as US Ambassador to Türkiye (which sees Syria's armed Kurdish groups as a national security threat) places the SDF in a particularly uncomfortable corner.

The SDF's request to extend the original deadline for a deal (the end of 2025) seemed to confirm that it had no real interest in an agreement

The US military has been a key SDF ally, the two having worked together for a decade to defeat IS, but the Pentagon now seems to have pivoted, prioritising the consolidation of Syria's transitional government authority, while consistently saying that Damascus must have a monopoly over the use of force. This rules out federalism and any separate armed forces in Syria. In short, the SDF must now dissolve and integrate.

In his confirmation hearing for US Central Command (CENTCOM) leadership, Vice Admiral Bradley Cooper made the point clearly, saying: "Stability in Syria hinges upon the current leader (al-Sharaa) remaining in place, and that is very important for us." With US troops drawing down, US military funding to the SDF is now at its lowest ever, with most of the funds allocated to securing IS camps and prisons, not to the SDF itself.

Becoming the problem

For years, those camps and prisons have been the SDF's most powerful source of international influence, but according to US President Donald Trump's recent executive order repealing Syria sanctions, they should now be transferred to the "responsibility" of Syria's transitional government.

When Assad was overthrown in December 2024, Syria's internal dynamic oriented overwhelmingly towards recovery and reunification. In the months since, that challenge has become genuinely existential for the SDF, which explains its increasingly clear determination to resist calls for it to dissolve and integrate. But delaying tactics are unlikely to help the SDF's cause.

As the Trump administration's point man on Syria, Thomas Barrack had previously conveyed an "August" deadline for the SDF to agree a deal. The SDF's behaviour at the recent Damascus summit gives no cause for optimism. The longer that remains the case, the more clear it becomes that the SDF—more than any other actor—represents the greatest obstacle to Syria's ability to consolidate, stabilise, and achieve a sustainable recovery.

+ / -