Back in March, the Kurdish SDF agreed on integration into the Syrian Army. The deal was mostly “in principle” with the details to be worked out in later talks. The process seems to have slowed on a number of different points, and the US isn’t happy.
The SDF retains effective control of northeast Syria, and most of the effort of late has been in fighting against a resurgent ISIS in that area. Though talks are continuing with the HTS a lot of specifics have yet to be worked out.
SDF leader Mazloum Abdi met with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) leader Ahmed al-Sharaa today in Damascus, and US envoy Tom Barrack was present as well, pushing the Kurds to make a final deal and advance the process quickly.
President Trump meeting with Syria’s de facto President Ahmed al-Sharaa and Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman in Riyadh on May 14, 2025
“I think SDF has been slow in accepting and negotiating and moving towards that, and my advice to them is to speed that,” Barrack declared, adding that federalism “doesn’t work” and the Kurds’ only choice is to integrate with the HTS government.
“What we’ve learned is federalism doesn’t work. You can’t have independent non-nation states within a nation,” Barrack insisted, warning that the Kurds “are running out of time” to accept a deal with the government. He also cheered the HTS for their “generosity” in aligning with the Kurds at all.
President Trump met Sharaa in May, praising the former al-Qaeda figure as an “attractive, tough guy.” Since then officials have been enthusiastically pro-HTS, and now it seems their patience with their traditional allies in the SDF is wearing thin, since they’re struggling to work out details of the integration with the HTS.
Most of the pressure to disarm and/or destroy the SDF was coming from Turkey in the first place, though since the Kurdish PKK has announced it is disbanding and ending the guerrilla war against Turkey, the government’s priorities are less concentrated on undermining Kurdish autonomy abroad.
