A surge in fighting between the Syrian government and Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Kurdish-led group administering much of the north east, has brought the country to a pivot point. The government has dramatically expanded the territory under its control – particularly in Arab-majority areas, where SDF forces rapidly collapsed and withdrew. Many Syrians there and beyond welcomed this development. But others, especially among the Kurdish population, were deeply fearful, particularly given the reports of atrocities committed by government forces in coastal and southern regions in 2025. On 18 January, President Ahmad al-Sharaa and SDF leader Mazloum Abdi signed a U.S.-mediated ceasefire, which also provides for incorporating SDF institutions into those of the central state. But a follow-up meeting between the two leaders on 19 January ended in stark disagreement, raising the risk of renewed armed confrontation and the possibility of significant escalation along ethnic lines.

A return to fighting – particularly if the Syrian army pushes into Kurdish population centres – would be bad for both sides and could upend Syria’s transition from the bloody reign of Bashar al-Assad, who was ousted just over a year ago, to a more stable future. Rather than court disaster, the two sides should focus on making the 18 January agreement work, defining further compromises to lay the groundwork for integrating north-eastern Syria into the state while safeguarding the rights of Kurds and all Syrians.

The SDF’s Rapid Retreat

Government forces began advancing on SDF positions in early January after months of intermittent U.S.-brokered negotiations failed to yield a breakthrough. The stalemate in talks had soured both sides on the promise of an earlier agreement between President al-Sharaa and Abdi, reached on 10 March 2025. That agreement outlined general principles for integrating the SDF and its affiliated administrative bodies into the Syrian state, setting a goal of fleshing out the practical details by the end of the year. Those efforts stalled, however. Progress briefly appeared possible at the eleventh hour, amid an exchange of proposals in December, but talks hit a wall on 4 January over the question of whether the SDF would accept Syrian government forces deploying into the north east. The sides diverge on this point: Damascus sees extending its command and control throughout Syrian territory as essential to consolidating state sovereignty. For its part, the SDF views maintaining decisive influence over armed forces in the north east as critical for sustaining the autonomy it has carved out over fifteen years of war. It is not ready to concede.

Two days after talks faltered, on 6 January, government troops in Aleppo (Syria’s second city in the north west) moved into a number of neighbourhoods controlled by Kurdish forces allied with the SDF. In April 2025, Damascus and the SDF had sketched a framework deal for bringing those city districts, a significant portion of whose residents are Kurds, under the central state’s aegis. Each side blamed the other for failing to follow through on this understanding – and then for firing the first shot. There is little question, however, that the government planned for the operation. Its forces asserted their authority over the neighbourhoods in just two days, at which point the Kurdish fighters accepted a U.S.-mediated deal to withdraw to the north east. 

Riding its momentum, the government then turned its military pressure on areas between Aleppo and the Euphrates River, which have a predominantly Arab population, and where the SDF extended its writ during the tumult of the late 2024 offensive that toppled the Assad regime. The U.S. pushed for a ceasefire in return for the SDF’s negotiated withdrawal, but that round of diplomacy failed to yield an explicit agreement. The SDF announced in the early morning of 17 January that it would pull out of most of the area, but its pledge fell short of Damascus’s expectations that it would vacate all its holdings west of the Euphrates. Clashes ensued, and as the Syrian army advanced it got a boost from popular uprisings in Arab-majority towns east of the Euphrates, which the SDF had controlled since seizing them from ISIS between 2016 and 2019.

The result was a rapid collapse of the SDF’s authority throughout the north-eastern Raqqa and Deir al-Zour provinces, as civilians took to the streets and it became clear that Arab components of the SDF and its allied Autonomous Administration were switching to the government’s side. Amid SDF fears that the government might push further toward areas heavily populated by Kurds, SDF leader Abdi agreed to a ceasefire and integration deal in the evening of 18 January.

Yet after the 19 January meeting between al-Sharaa and Abdi ended in discord, the deal seemed to be on thin ice. That conversation had aimed to define practical details of the agreement. But as in early January, it broke down due to differences over the degree of local autonomy that the SDF would retain. The SDF has accepted its loss of Raqqa and Deir al-Zour, but it aims to keep the upper hand throughout the territory that remains under its control in Kobani and al-Hassaka province, a diverse area including major Kurdish population centres.

While the SDF has affirmed the general principle of integration within the Syrian state, it asserts that the government’s commitment in the 18 January agreement to “protect the special character of Kurdish areas” (see below) should entail continuation of the SDF’s lead security and administrative roles there. In contrast, Damascus wants to expand the government’s administrative writ to these areas and to end the SDF’s local monopoly on the use of force. The government also insists on beginning implementation immediately, while the SDF has pushed for more time to deliberate. 

Building on a Fragile Ceasefire

Making the 18 January agreement work is the best current prospect for stabilising Syria’s north east. For the SDF, it may be a tough pill to swallow. The agreement contains terms that are much less favourable to the group than those Damascus had seemed willing to countenance just two weeks prior, reflecting the swift change in the balance of power. Notably, the current agreement stipulates that SDF members will be incorporated into Syrian government forces on an individual basis rather than as coherent units, which SDF negotiators had proposed as a means of preserving influence and (they hoped) a significant degree of local autonomy. As recently as early January, Damascus appeared poised to accept the SDF’s proposal by incorporating three SDF divisions and three brigades into the army. But when the SDF refused to accede to Damascus’s condition for this concession – namely, enabling Syrian government forces to operate within the north east – the potential deal fell apart. 

Two weeks later, on 18 January, Damascus was able to drive a much harder bargain. In addition to downgrading military integration to an “individual” basis, the ceasefire agreement also commits the SDF to completely hand over Raqqa and Deir al-Zour provinces “administratively and militarily” to the government; to integrate all civil administrative institutions in al-Hassaka province into government structures; to transfer all border crossings and oil and gas fields to government control; and to expel all non-Syrian members of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, from Syria. 

Those were difficult terms for SDF leaders to accept, but they were wise to do so rather than risk losing further ground. They can best serve the interests of their Kurdish base by working quickly with President al-Sharaa to hammer out the details, rather than backing away. More fighting would likely deal the group additional blows.

Nor is the 18 January agreement without benefits for the Kurdish population. It includes important points which, if expanded upon, could serve as the basis for meaningful safeguards for Kurdish rights that provide a model for minorities elsewhere in the country. The agreement’s affirmation of the need to “protect the special character of Kurdish areas” provides an opening to negotiate a middle ground between the near-total autonomy the SDF has enjoyed thus far and the extreme centralisation of Syrian governance under the former Assad regime. In the predominantly Kurdish city of Kobani, the agreement calls for forming security forces composed of area residents and preserving the present local police force. The SDF should seek clarification that Damascus would apply this same formula in other Kurdish population centres and work with it to define how such forces would be structured, staffed and linked to the interior ministry.

If the sides can reach agreement on those practicalities, it could serve as the foundation for a generalised approach to integration, which would be a major breakthrough. The government’s announcements on 20 January that its forces “will not enter Kurdish towns and villages” and that it will grant the SDF four days to consult on a detailed integration plan are positive steps. But much work lies ahead.