International Crisis Group
Q&A / Middle East & North Africa 28 March 2025 13 minutes
A Glimmer of Peace in Syria’s North East
An accord between the interim government in Damascus and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces could mark a turn for the better in the country’s post-Assad transition. In this Q&A, Crisis Group experts explain what the deal contains and what it means for the region.
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Syria
Iraq
Türkiye
United States
What is happening?
On 10 March, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Kurdish-led armed group that controls Syria’s north east, and the country’s interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, signed a landmark deal outlining the basis for integrating the SDF’s civilian and military apparatus into the central state. The agreement is neither detailed nor definitive; instead, it will launch a tortuous series of negotiations to take place over the months ahead. Even so, it has relieved months of steadily rising tensions between the two sides. The SDF and its Autonomous Administration exercise de facto governance throughout most of Syria’s north east, home to oil and gas fields that produce 80-90 per cent of Syria’s hydrocarbon output. The SDF is also backed by Washington, having been a key partner in the U.S.-led anti-ISIS coalition. But Türkiye has long been an adversary of the group, regarding it as nothing but an appendage of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which Ankara, along the U.S. and the EU, has designated as a terrorist organisation.
Al-Sharaa, for his part, commanded the rebel forces that swept the regime of former President Bashar al-Assad out of power in December 2024. His interim government has pledged to bring all of Syria’s territory that the regime lost to assorted insurgents back under the writ of Damascus. The 10 March agreement, while deliberately vague in its particulars, marks a first step forward toward reunification. Seeking to bring about a new working relationship between the interim government and the SDF, it establishes follow-up committees through which the two sides have said they will flesh out a detailed roadmap by year’s end and aim to avert any fresh military confrontation between them.
Why is the agreement important?
While the limited agreement leaves much to be resolved, it nevertheless points to a momentous shift in the north east’s troubled relations to the rest of Syria. Risks of a fight over north-eastern Syria had been rising in the months immediately following Assad’s overthrow. So, when al-Sharaa and Mazloum Abdi, head of the SDF, signed the joint document in Damascus, signalling their commitment to unifying the country through dialogue rather than force of arms, the news was greeted with celebrations in the streets of many Syrian cities, including the capital and Qamishli in the north east.
At least in the short term, the agreement is a win for both sides. For Damascus in particular, the pivot toward reconciliation with the U.S.-backed SDF marked an important attempt by the interim government to regain credibility and earned it much-needed good-will. The interim government’s domestic and international standing had slipped following a series of setbacks, above all the fierce clashes that broke out in early March between Assad regime loyalists and Syrian security forces along the Mediterranean coast. Amid that fighting, groups aligned with the interim authorities perpetrated horrific attacks on civilians, killing hundreds. Nearly all the victims were Alawites, the ethno-religious group from which the Assad family originated, and which it leaned on to staff its intelligence, military and paramilitary institutions. The massacres fanned fears among Alawites and other minorities about the intentions of the new authorities, which are drawn from the ranks of Hei’at Tahrir al-Sham, a Sunni Islamist group with a jihadist past. Meanwhile, Syrians across the country are suffering from its economic paralysis, with little immediate relief in sight. For many Syrians, the Damascus-SDF agreement offers a glimmer of hope that a more peaceful, inclusive transition can be achieved – and with it an improvement in relations with Washington, which continues to impose crippling sanctions.
For the SDF, meanwhile, the agreement allays the risk of further incursions into the north east by Turkish-backed factions formerly known as the Syrian National Army (SNA) – a threat that has loomed large since some of those factions seized Manbij, a city just west of the Euphrates River, from the SDF just after Assad fell. SNA units, which have been battling the SDF for years, now officially answer to the new Syrian defence ministry, though in practice they are not yet entirely under its command and control. At the same time, the U.S. has been urging the SDF to offer more in negotiations with Damascus – a message that the group has taken to heart, leading it to make overtures to the government weeks before the 10 March deal.
What did the two sides agree to?
The agreement outlines several principles on which the two sides concur. It guarantees “the rights of all Syrians to representation and participation in the political process and all state institutions, based on meritocracy, regardless of religious or ethnic background”. It recognises “the Kurdish community as an integral part of the Syrian state” and “ensures its rights to citizenship and all constitutional rights” – an important milestone, given the Assad regime’s suppression of Kurdish identity and its denial of citizenship rights to some Kurds. It rejects calls for incitement to sectarian violence, instead affirming support for the Syrian state “against Assad’s forces and all threats that endanger its security and unity”. It provides for the return of all Syrians displaced during the war to their places of origin under Syrian state protection – a top priority for the SDF, particularly with regard to Kurds uprooted from their hometowns by Turkish-backed offensives. It calls for a ceasefire throughout Syrian territory. Finally, it commits the two sides to “integrating all civil and military institutions in north-eastern Syria within the administration of the Syrian state, including border crossings, airports, and oil and gas fields”. This last item is the most complex and politically sensitive in the agreement – and the one where the two sides’ visions remain farthest apart.
In the SDF’s eyes, Damascus was rushing toward a final settlement before establishing a basis of confidence between the sides.
Reaching the agreement was not straightforward. Discussions between the two sides began somewhat frostily on 23 December 2024, when a first meeting between al-Sharaa and Abdi since the fall of Assad exposed the differences between them. Al-Sharaa sought to settle the practicalities of merging SDF institutions into the Syrian state and then move forward quickly. Abdi, on the other hand, proposed a more gradual process, beginning with creating joint committees to hash out a detailed roadmap. Trust between two sides was in short supply. The new authorities in Damascus sensed that the SDF was stalling as its position on the battlefield was weakening. In the SDF’s eyes, Damascus was rushing toward a final settlement before establishing a basis of confidence between the sides. The group also believed that Damascus, distracted by the tumult of Syria’s transition, could not give proper attention to negotiations about the north east.
In light of these previous differences, the 10 March agreement is an ambitious step forward. But it is also shallow. Beneath the motives driving both sides toward negotiations and the shared goals they have laid out lie sharply diverging opinions over how these principles should be put into practice, above all when it comes to the future shape of the Syrian state. Rather than ironing out those points right away, the two sides agreed to bridge the remaining gaps within a year via a series of joint negotiating committees, as first proposed by the SDF.
But several pitfalls lie in wait as these talks get under way. The SDF’s approach to negotiations is rooted in the belief that time is on its side, while it also harbours doubts as to al-Sharaa’s ability to exert central rule over Syria. It favours a cautious, step-by-step approach to integration, starting with the central government resuming the limited role previously adopted by the Assad regime in the north east, including deploying small forces in parts of the cities of Qamishli and al-Hassakah, managing the Qamishli airport, and paying salaries to civil servants. These Assad-era arrangements had created a veneer of state presence in the area, while allowing the SDF to maintain de facto control. Damascus, on the other hand, is intent on restoring central state authority over Arab areas held by the SDF, particularly those containing large oil and gas fields, and regards the re-establishment of the status quo ante under Assad in the north east as unacceptable.
What is missing from the agreement?
The fundamental difference between the sides, which the agreement does not tackle, concerns the relationship between the central and north-eastern authorities. The sides have agreed on the principle of integrating their military and civil institutions, but not on the procedures by which that merger would take place. This question goes well beyond technicalities, touching upon highly sensitive political concerns on the two sides over the degree of centralisation or devolution in Syrian governance. The SDF has long advocated a highly decentralised model, under the umbrella of a single Syrian state. With that in mind, it aims to retain as many as possible of the autonomous military, security and administrative institutions it has built in the north east, while connecting them to the central state.
Damascus, for its part, argues that Syria requires a more centralised system of governance to overcome the country’s many fissures. It made its views on the subject clear in an interim constitutional declaration on 13 March (drawing immediate criticism from the SDF as a result). At stake is a question that concerns all of Syria and transcends the remit of the planned committee meetings between state and SDF representatives.
A second major challenge concerns the ceasefire. While it marks an important breakthrough, the SDF-Damascus agreement does not include all the warring parties in northern Syria. Türkiye is not a signatory to the deal, and it may continue to carry out drone strikes on targets it deems linked to the PKK. These Turkish attacks have on occasion killed civilians, including a 17 March incident that, according to the SDF, claimed the lives of nine members of a single family. Another source of concern related to the truce stems from the difficulties that the interim government and the SDF leadership face in exercising control of forces operating on their respective sides of the front. Formally speaking, as mentioned above, the SNA is now subsumed under the Syrian defence ministry, but its factions have until now retained their own command structures and links to Ankara. On the other side, Kurdish insurgents, often operating outside the SDF’s aegis, have launched occasional attacks on SNA and Turkish targets, as part of the conflict between the PKK and Türkiye, which appears to be entering a new phase (see below).
How have regional developments affected the negotiations?
The most important changes have occurred next door in Türkiye, where the state’s long-running conflict with the PKK may be winding down. Soon after the uprising against Assad began in 2011, north-eastern Syria emerged as a stronghold of the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the SDF’s armed wing and its backbone. The YPG has deep ties to the PKK; within its ranks are cadres (including some non-Syrians) trained at PKK headquarters in Iraq’s Qandil mountains. Particularly after the U.S. backed the SDF to be its main partner in its anti-ISIS campaign in 2015, Türkiye viewed U.S. support for the group as emboldening the PKK and fuelling conflict on its own soil. Ankara has launched several offensives against the SDF, striking its positions from the air and stationing troops in Syria. Its primary aim has been to weaken the SDF’s hold on key areas, including the lucrative oil fields. Now, however, Ankara and the PKK may be on the doorstep of a fragile political process, which could deeply affect north-eastern Syria.
Contacts between Türkiye and Abdullah Öcalan, the imprisoned PKK leader, led to a watershed declaration on 27 February, when Öcalan called on the PKK to disarm and dissolve. The PKK is now due to hold a conference to determine its future course. No date has been set, but should the group formally heed its leader’s injunction, the PKK and Ankara could enter a political process aimed at resolving the conflict, dampening tensions over Syria’s north east and creating more leeway for negotiations. The SDF welcomed Öcalan’s statement but emphasised the group’s “unique” circumstances, indicating that it does not believe it can lay down its arms at this time.
Likewise, progress in the Syria negotiations could alter the calculations of either Türkiye, the PKK or both. Ankara has so far responded positively to the SDF-Damascus agreement. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan welcomed it on 11 March, emphasising Türkiye’s commitment to Syria’s territorial integrity, which he said the deal’s fulfilment would enhance. Türkiye has also refrained from launching an incursion into the north-eastern city of Kobani, an SDF bastion, which had seemed imminent in January. The more cautious approach adopted by Ankara reflects its desire to avoid friction with the U.S. over Syria, as well as the belief that it can achieve its objectives without ratcheting up hostilities.
What does Türkiye want to see in Syria’s north east?
Ankara’s primary concern in north-eastern Syria is that the PKK could tap its hydrocarbon resources, recruit fighters from the region or use it as a launchpad for attacks on Türkiye. As a result, Ankara opposes any scenario, such as federalism, that would grant the north east a high degree of autonomy from Damascus. Instead, Ankara, like Damascus, would like to see the SDF’s civil and military structures folded into those of the Syrian central government.
Ankara appears to have four broad requirements. First, Turkish officials stress that the YPG should disband, opposing their incorporation as distinct units into Syria’s armed forces. Secondly, Ankara demands the removal of non-Syrian PKK cadres from the SDF’s ranks. If the PKK indeed votes to dissolve, then presumably these militants would stand down anyway, making their exit from the SDF easier (in that case, Ankara might offer assurances to the SDF that its attacks will stop and accept the group’s presence in Kurdish-majority areas). Thirdly, Türkiye is wary of any form of Kurdish self-governance in northern Syria, fearing that it could inspire similar aspirations elsewhere, including among Kurdish groups in Turkey. Lastly, it does not want to see the SDF emerge as the Syrian Kurds’ sole representative in Damascus. In this vein, it has encouraged other groups, like the Kurdish National Council, which enjoys close relations with Ankara, to join forces with the central government in Damascus.
How have these developments affected Iraq?
Authorities in Iraq, including the government in Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government in Erbil, have welcomed both the deal that Abdi signed with al-Sharaa and the nascent political process with PKK. Baghdad and Erbil consider Syria’s stability a guarantee of Iraq’s own peace. Yet both are concerned that the uncertainties surrounding the deal over north-eastern Syria could cause tensions that ISIS might exploit, especially if the Trump administration decides to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria (as it repeatedly threatened to do when it first held office and seems ready to do this time around). Some Iraqi officials are nevertheless hopeful that U.S. troops will stay in Syria. They were encouraged in this regard when, on 13 March, President Donald Trump publicly acknowledged an operation mounted by the anti-ISIS coalition and Iraqi intelligence services operation to kill ISIS leader Abu Khadija. Meanwhile, Iraq has speeded up repatriation of Iraqi citizens from al-Hol, a detention camp for families of ISIS fighters run by the SDF, to a rehabilitation facility in Iraq’s Ninewa province.
The Iraqi Kurdistan Democratic Party, a close ally of Ankara, has supported both the Turkish initiative with the PKK and the talks between the SDF and Damascus. If the former process goes well, and the PKK demobilises, it is possible that the movement’s cadres now based in the Qandil mountains could be allowed to continue living there in peace, as has already happened with Iranian Kurdish opposition groups.
What role is the U.S. playing?
The U.S. has approximately 2,000 troops in Syria as part of its counter-ISIS mission. The bulk of those forces are deployed in the north east, though the U.S. also maintains a garrison at al-Tanf, which is located in the far south east on the Iraqi border and within miles of Jordan. The U.S. continues to conduct airstrikes on ISIS targets and to help the SDF with the detention of thousands of ISIS fighters as well as their families, the majority of whom are held at al-Hol. Though President Trump tried to pull U.S. forces out of Syria during his first term, he was thwarted by concerted resistance by key officials in his administration. Signs are, however, that the Trump administration is actively considering a withdrawal in the coming year, and Pentagon officials are developing options for carrying out such an order.
In the meantime, the Trump administration continues to back the SDF, encouraging the group to deal with Damascus directly. The U.S. Central Command is also using its influence with the SDF to push for a negotiated outcome, even transporting Abdi (and other SDF leaders) to Damascus for the talks with al-Sharaa. But the U.S. has not directly participated in these conversations.
More broadly, the Trump White House is wary of the new Syrian government in light of the jihadist past of its key leaders, including al-Sharaa. That reticence, coupled with the complexities of the transition between administrations in Washington, which has seen numerous posts relevant to Syria at the National Security Council and the State Department left unfilled, has dampened engagement with the new authorities in Damascus. It has also meant that despite the high stakes of Syria’s transition, the U.S. has not made the issue a priority to date.
Ankara may come to play a part in the Trump administration’s deliberations. It is hoping that the warm relations between Erdoğan and Trump may produce a regional agreement on the future of counter-terrorism that would encourage a U.S. withdrawal, enhance border security and reduce reliance on the U.S.-backed SDF. As such, Türkiye has initiated efforts to form a coalition with Syria, Iraq and Jordan to combat the remnants of ISIS, with officials from these nations meeting on 9 March in Amman, Jordan’s capital, to discuss joint strategies for fighting the group.
Related Tags
Syria
Iraq
Türkiye
United States
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