Syria’s interim government says it has reached a landmark agreement with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to integrate the group into state institutions.
Interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa announced the deal on Monday, saying it was aimed at “ensuring the rights of all Syrians in representation and participation in the political process and all state institutions based on competence, regardless of their religious and ethnic backgrounds.”
The deal will also recognize Syria’s Kurdish community as an integral part of the state, tens of thousands of whom were previously denied citizenship under the decades-long rule of the Assad regime.
“We consider this agreement a real opportunity to build a new Syria that embraces all its components and ensures good neighborliness,” SDF General Commander Mazloum Abdi said in a statement on X.
The deal is one of the biggest developments in the country since the rebel alliance led by Sharaa toppled former President Bashar al-Assad in December.
By integrating the Kurdish community, it hopes to guard against the possibility of further sectarian strife in the country, which suffered through more than a decade of civil war before Assad’s downfall.
Crowds gathered across the Syrian cities of Aleppo, Homs, Hama, Tartus, Deir Ezzor and Hasaka to celebrate the agreement. Fireworks lit up the sky over the landmark Aleppo Citadel in the early hours of Tuesday.
The move comes amid the worst violence the country has seen in years as security forces fight supporters of Assad. Clashes in the former ruler’s heartland have killed at least 779 people since last Thursday, including scores of civilians, according to a war monitor.
The deal between Syria’s interim government and the SDF guarantees the Kurdish-led group’s support to the Syrian state in combatting the Assad remnants and any other threats to the country’s security and unity.
The SDF, which was not part of the rebel alliance that overthrew Assad, is presently the most powerful non-governmental force in the country and holds strategic territories, primarily in the northeast.
Under the new deal, those areas would come under the control of the central government, including border crossings, airports, and oil and gas fields. Meanwhile, a ceasefire would go into effect across Syria and displaced Syrians would return to their homes.
Executive committees have been tasked with making sure the agreement is implemented by the end of the year.
While the SDF has been a key US partner in the fight against ISIS, it is largely made up of fighters from a group known as the Peoples’ Protection Units (YPG), which is considered a terrorist organization by neighboring Turkey.
In 2019, several months after the US-backed SDF liberated the town of Baghouz, ISIS’s final stronghold in the country, US President Donald Trump ordered the withdrawal of the remaining US troops from northern Syria – a move that paralyzed the fight against ISIS and ceded US and Kurdish battlefield gains to Moscow and Damascus.
Five years later, after returning to the White House, Trump has doubled down on his “America First” stance, arguing that Syria is not the US’ fight.
“Syria is a mess, but is not our friend,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform in December as opposition forces closed in on Damascus, urging a hands-off approach.
In the days following Assad’s ousting, the SDF repeatedly clashed with Turkish-backed militants, raising concerns among US officials and experts about the security of the more than 20 detention facilities and camps holding suspected ISIS members and their families in northern Syria.
The SDF later relocated ISIS detainees to more secure detention facilities because the prisons were threatened.
Turkey and other neighbors including Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon have all offered to help secure prisons holding ISIS suspects.
CNN has reached out to the SDF and the Syrian government for comment on how the deal would affect the detention facilities.
This story has been updated with additional information. CNN’s Michael Rios contributed reporting.
