Aleppo clashes expose hurdles in SDF’s integration into Syrian army

Aleppo clashes expose hurdles in SDF’s integration into Syrian army Tensions high as an end-of-year deadline to incorporate the Kurdish-led SDF into the Syrian armed forces approaches. Clashes between Syrian government forces and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Syria’s second-largest city, Aleppo, did not come in a vacuum. Tensions between the two sides have been high as an end-of-year deadline to incorporate the SDF into the Syrian armed forces approaches. Recommended Stories list of 3 items list 1 of 3 US wants to sell GM soya and corn to India, farmers wary list 2 of 3 News Quiz: Can you locate the biggest stories from 2025? list 3 of 3 ‘We have nothing’: Endless pain for displaced civilians fleeing Sudan war The fighting erupted on Monday afternoon during a visit by Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan but had ended by that evening after the two sides agreed to halt firing. Analysts told Al Jazeera that the SDF, led by military leader Mazloum Abdi (also known as Mazloum Kobani) and the Syrian government, have seemingly reached an impasse on how to integrate the Kurdish fighters into the new state military structure and that a failure to find a serious deal could lead to renewed bouts of fighting or military confrontation between the two sides. “The red lines of the [Kurdish] self-administration on one hand, and Turkiye/Damascus on the other, do present some striking incompatibility, and I do not see a way that the two can be reconciled,” Thomas McGee, the Max Weber Fellow specialising on Syria at the European University Institute in Florence, told Al Jazeera. Negotiations On March 10, the new Syrian government in Damascus, led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, and the SDF signed a historic agreement that planned to integrate the latter group into Syria’s new armed forces by the end of 2025. The SDF is largely made up of members of the People’s Defense Units (YPG), the military wing of the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The PKK is labelled a “terrorist” organisation by the United States, the European Union and Turkiye. The agreement was seen as a means of avoiding a potentially explosive confrontation between Damascus and the US-trained SDF. However, 10 months on, while the agreement has helped the two sides avoid clashes, little progress has been made. ”For there to be any progress on implementing this point, one side would have to give way ... as such, the status quo prevails,” McGee added. A point of contention seems to be between the SDF’s preferred position of incorporating their existing battalions into the Syrian armed forces with a degree of autonomy, versus Damascus’s preferred position of the individual integration of SDF fighters. Analysts told Al Jazeera that these two positions were likely untenable and that an agreement didn’t seem imminent. Turkiye has backed Damascus and even threatened unilateral military intervention should an agreement not be reached. “We just hope that things go through dialogue, negotiations and peacefully. We don’t want to see...

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