Syria's Kurds fear new betrayal as Sharaa gears up for Trump meeting

MANAMA/DAMASCUS — Syria’s president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, is set to become the first Syrian leader to meet with a sitting American president in the White House on Nov. 10, scoring a momentous win just 11 months after overthrowing his country’s long-time dictator, Bashar al-Assad. Many Syrians — crushed by 14 years of devastating conflict that has left much of the country in ruins, killed more than half a million people and displaced millions more — will be filled with pride when President Donald Trump hosts Sharaa, a former jihadi who once fought US soldiers in Iraq.

But many of the country’s Kurds — who drove the campaign against the Islamic State with the backing of the United States, losing thousands of men and women and carrying their fight to Arab-majority areas to shield Syria and the West from the jihadis’ barbaric attacks — will likely feel betrayed.

“We would have hoped at the very least to be included in Sharaa’s delegation,” a Kurdish source with close ties to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Kurdish-led force that is partnered with the US-led coalition against ISIS, told Al-Monitor. The Trump administration’s Syria envoy, Tom Barrack, said last weekend that Sharaa is expected to sign a document formalizing his government’s inclusion in that coalition, a move that will further boost his legitimacy and pave the way for overt military cooperation with the United States.

The sides are also expected to discuss a deconfliction agreement with Israel that the United States has been pushing for, alongside the full repeal of all residual congressional sanctions over Syria.