The Syrian government announced on Monday, March 10, that it agreed to integrate the US-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) into the state’s institutions.
The agreement comes in the midst of deep turmoil in the country and major challenges for Syria’s new government as over 1,000 people, mainly from the Alawite community, have been killed in sectarian mass killings in Latakia and Tartus. The mass killings have been carried out by the interim government forces, composed largely by former al-Qaeda offshoot Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) which overthrew the Assad government in December.
For many, the mass killings revealed the sectarian nature of al-Sharaa’s government which has claimed to want to unify the country’s diverse communities following a decade-long civil war. The timing of its agreement with the Kurdish forces, representing another key ethnic group in Syria, therefore, is notable.
Al-Sharaa has claimed that the agreement aims 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.”
What does integrating SDF mean in terms of Syria’s territorial control?
Integrating the SDF into the interim government institutions, may indicate a prima facie control by the Syrian state on large swathes of northern and eastern Syria. Yet, it also introduces and exposes a new set of internal and regional dynamics which emerged following the fall of the Bashar al-Assad’s government.
The SDF have been supported by the US and worked in close coordination with the US in Syria during the civil war. Yet, close US ally Turkiyë, has designated the SDF as a terrorist organization that poses a direct threat to its national security as it is led by the US-backed Kurdish YPG units, the Syrian branch of the Workers’ Party of Kurdistan (PKK).
Nevertheless, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan welcomed the agreement between the Syrian interim government and the SDF on Tuesday, March 11, labeling it as a win for “all our Syrian brothers.”
“The full implementation of the agreement will serve the security and peace of Syria and the winners of this will be all of our Syrian brothers,” Erdogan said, adding that the “full implementation of the agreement” will “serve the security and peace of Syria.
Erdogan’s position is notable, and reveals another deep contradiction of the politics of the US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO): when it comes to the interests of the “Western Bloc” coalition, nothing remains unalterable, even the label of terrorism on the most sworn enemies may be reconsidered.
Due to the decade-long US-SDF alliance, their integration into the Syrian interim government is likely welcome news for the US and its allies in NATO. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio saluted the development. Thus the Western-bloc seems to have made progress in expanding its influence across the West Asia region. This could open the door to further enhance the presence of its military bases and proxy forces from northern Syria, passing through Jordan and reaching into the Arab Gulf with no territorial boundaries.
According to a report published by the Council on Foreign Relations in October 2024, the United States has military facilities in at least nineteen sites across the West Asia region, including in Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and the United Arab Emirates. Eight of these facilities are considered to be permanent by many regional analysts.
