Syria Announces Ceasefire That Would Fold U.S.-Backed Kurdish Force Into State

Syria’s government announced a ceasefire Sunday with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, a deal that would bring nearly the whole country under Damascus’s control and end the SDF’s hold on the northeast, the Associated Press reported. The SDF has been a key U.S. ally against the Islamic State, and Washington’s envoy helped broker the arrangement.

The agreement follows a month of rising tension. Fighting broke out in Aleppo on Jan. 6 after talks to merge the SDF into the national army stalled, Al Jazeera reported, and a U.S.-brokered ceasefire took effect Jan. 10. Government forces then pushed east. They took Tabqa overnight and reached much of Raqqa city, the AP said, and Al Jazeera reported they also captured the Euphrates Dam and the Freedom Dam. The areas at stake in Raqqa and Deir el-Zour provinces include oil and gas fields, river dams and border crossings, according to the AP.

Syria’s Defense Ministry ordered front-line fighting halted. President Ahmad al-Sharaa signed the agreement in Damascus. The document also carries the signature of SDF commander Mazloum Abdi, who did not attend because of bad weather and agreed by phone; he is expected in Damascus on Monday, the AP reported. The SDF had not confirmed the deal when the AP published.

Under the terms described by the AP, the SDF would be dismantled and its fighters would join the Syrian military and security forces. Senior military and civilian figures would receive high-ranking state posts. The SDF would hand over Raqqa and Deir el-Zour provinces, border crossings and oil and gas fields, while Hasakah Province would return only its civilian administration to Damascus. Al Jazeera described the package as a 14-point agreement folding the SDF into the defense and interior ministries. Al-Sharaa said implementation would be gradual, starting with the halt in hostilities, and called the deal “a victory for all Syrians of all backgrounds.”

For the United States, the most sensitive provision involves detainees. Kurdish-led agencies run prisons and camps holding thousands of Islamic State fighters and their families, and those facilities would pass to Damascus, the AP reported. The SDF had warned that attacks on Raqqa threatened security because the city holds thousands of Islamic State detainees, Al Jazeera said. The SDF took Tabqa from the Islamic State in 2017, when the militants held Raqqa as their capital, the AP noted, and Al Jazeera reported that the SDF and a U.S.-led coalition defeated the group in the northeast by 2019.

U.S. special envoy Tom Barrack met al-Sharaa earlier Sunday, the AP reported. Barrack called the agreement a “pivotal inflection point, where former adversaries embrace partnership over division,” in a post on X, according to the Times of Israel and Al Jazeera. He said it would lead to “renewed dialogue and cooperation toward a unified Syria,” the AP reported. The AP noted that the United States backs both sides, and Al Jazeera said Washington had earlier urged the Syrian army to halt its advance into Kurdish-held territory.

Other pieces of the arrangement go beyond the battlefield. Al Jazeera reported that a decree issued Friday made Kurdish a national language, restored citizenship to Kurds affected by a 1962 census in Hasakah and made the Kurdish new year, Newroz, a paid national holiday. Turkey views the SDF as the Syrian branch of the PKK; under the deal the SDF would expel PKK elements from outside Syria’s borders, Al Jazeera said.

A March 10 agreement between Damascus and Abdi to merge northeastern institutions into the state had never taken hold, with each side accusing the other of violations, the AP reported. Syria’s current leaders took power after Bashar al-Assad was toppled in December 2024. There is no clear timetable for the new deal, and its durability will depend on how the transfers of territory and detention facilities are carried out.