 have shown little willingness to integrate with the government in Damascus, accusing the group of coordinating some of its activities with Israel, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.){kind=link}
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has said the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have shown little willingness to integrate with the government in Damascus, accusing the group of coordinating some of its activities with Israel, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.
Fidan made the remarks at a joint news conference in Damascus with his Syrian counterpart, Asaad Hassan al-Shaibani, after meetings with Syria’s transitional leadership on Monday.
“We see that the SDF has no intention of making much progress” in integration talks with the Damascus administration, Fidan said.
The SDF — which controls large swaths of Syria’s oil-rich northeast — had signed an agreement with the new Syrian authorities in March to merge their civil and military institutions, but the deal’s terms have not been implemented.
Fidan said an alleged coordination between the SDF and Israel was hindering negotiations with the Syrian government, adding that Turkey wants talks between Syria and Israel to reach a conclusion. He did not provide further details.
According to Anadolu al-Shaibani agreed with Fidan’s comments, saying Damascus had seen no clear will from the SDF regarding integration.
He said Syria’s new authorities would put greater emphasis on the country’s northeastern Jazira region, adding that “the Syrian state will be present there.”
The Jazira region in northeast Syria is the historical heartland of Syrian Kurds, who form the largest ethnic minority in the country.
Fidan traveled to Damascus along with Defense Minister Yaşar Güler and National Intelligence Organization chief İbrahim Kalın to meet with Syria’s transitional president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, and other Syrian officials on Monday.
The SDF controls large parts of northeastern Syria and is dominated by the People’s Protection Units, (YPG), the armed wing of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party. Turkey considers the YPG an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party(PKK) and applies the same designation to the SDF.
The PKK has waged a decades-long insurgency inside Turkey and is designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey and its Western allies.
The United States, however, has long viewed the SDF as a key partner in the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which lost its territorial control in Syria in 2019.
Turkey has previously warned of consequences if integration talks fail. In an interview with TRT World last week, Fidan said Ankara did not want to launch a new military operation against the SDF but expressed frustration over delays in implementing the March 10 agreement between the Syrian government and the group.
The agreement, signed by SDF commander Mazloum Abdi and Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, set out an eight-point framework to fold the SDF’s civil and military structures in northeast Syria into Syrian state institutions. It also covered border crossings, airports and oil and gas fields and called for a ceasefire across Syria.
Fidan said Turkey favored dialogue and peaceful means but expected the deal to be implemented without delay.
Turkey has backed Syria’s new leadership since the fall of former Bashar al-Assad in December 2024. Between 2016 and 2019, Ankara carried out three cross-border military operations in northern Syria targeting Syrian Kurdish fighters and ISIL.