The Kurdish SDF has rejected the US demand to fully disarm and withdraw from key areas and border crossings in northeast Syria, saying that the idea of laying down arms is “non-negotiable.”
SDF representative Sihanouk Dibo said that the group’s long-term vision was to integrate into a reformed Syrian military, but that required a solution that would “guarantee the constitutional rights” of Syria’s component groups, something that the current government doesn’t provide.
The SDF agreed with the idea of integration months ago, but was quite vocal about their opposition after the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) totally shut them out of the “inclusive” new cabinet, and the exact integration has been on relative hold because of the lack of progress on that.
Tom Barrack with Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa | Image from X
Which is really only part of the story. Not only is the HTS promise of inclusion not standing up to casual scrutiny with a cabinet that gave a few minority groups irrelevant token positions, government forces have been involved in multiple high-profile massacres of minorities this year, with the Alawites getting slaughtered in the northwest in March and the Druze getting killed in large numbers just this month.
The US, and Ambassador Tom Barrack have been increasingly vocal about wanting the SDF to totally disband, disarm and hand over the northeast to HTS control, claiming the Kurds are going too slow. He praised the HTS for agreeing to integrate the Kurds in the first place, but showed little patience for the desire for the Kurds to maintain any sort of autonomy, insisting that federalism “doesn’t work.”
In keeping with Barrack’s penchant for praising responses that are seemingly the exact opposite of what he wanted, the envoy praised the SDF today despite the disarmament he demanded seemingly being off the table. Barrack rather presented the SDF position to eventually integrate in a better system as a commitment to “one army, one government, one state.” That could technically be seen as the case, though not the government as it presently exists.
SDF officials indicated Barracks demands were immediate disarmament and ceding the cities of Hasakeh, Raqqah, Deir Ezzor and Tabqa to the central government, along with handing over natural resources in the northeast, which the SDF took control of from ISIS during the civil war.
Though the HTS official position is that they must have a monopoly over arms in the country, they don’t appear to have been pushing the Kurds, or anybody else for that matter, to immediately capitulate. It is the US rather, and Barrack in particular, that seems to be trying to accelerate full HTS control over Syria.
