Closed-door breakdown in Syria-Kurdish talks foreshadowed Aleppo clashes

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When a Kurdish delegation led by Mazlum Kobane, the commander-in-chief of the Syrian Democratic Forces, met on Jan. 4 with Syrian Defense Minister Murhaf Abu Qasra in Damascus for the latest round of US-brokered integration talks, it was clear that something was amiss. Two days later, fierce clashes erupted between government forces and Kurdish militants in two of Aleppo's Kurdish-majority neighborhoods, Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh, in some of the worst violence between the sides since the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024.

The SDF says Syria’s transitional government initiated the attacks that have displaced more than 140,000 people and left at least eight civilians dead and dozens injured, according to Syrian officials quoted by Reuters. The SDF put the number of civilian deaths resulting from attacks by government-allied forces at nine.

A truce that came into effect at 3:00 a.m. local time on Friday is looking increasingly shaky as armed Kurdish groups vowed to defend their neighborhoods and refused to board buses provided by the government for their evacuation to the Kurdish-controlled northeast of the country.

The Syrian military said it would target military sites used by Kurdish fighters in Sheikh Maqsoud, which is strategically perched above Aleppo and will be harder to breach. It also announced the opening of a humanitarian corridor from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. local time for civilians to leave. 

SDF spokesperson Farhad Shami said Sheikh Maqsoud had come under “intense and heavy shelling” by factions linked to Damascus. He said they were using heavy weapons, tanks and artillery in what amounted to “a pattern of systematic war of annihilation against the population.”

The SDF added in a statement that a drone launched by factions allied with the government had targeted Sheikh Maqsoud’s sole hospital, where civilians were sheltering amid freezing cold temperatures.

Foza Yusuf, a top Syrian Kurdish official, told Al-Monitor in an exclusive interview on Thursday that the behavior of the Syrian delegation during Sunday’s meeting to discuss details of the integration of the SDF into Syria’s national military had been “strange.” Brig. Gen. Kevin Lambert, commander of the US-led coalition against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, was present at the talks.

The talks are one of the main pillars of a March 10 agreement signed between Kobane and Syria’s interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, that provides a framework for the Kurdish-run north of the country to merge its civilian and military institutions with the central government. The agreement is now in “a coma,” Yusuf said.

She noted that the government side had ended the meeting abruptly, without “any reasonable” justification. The SDF delegation’s demands for a joint statement recording progress achieved during the talks were rebuffed. The attack on Aleppo had thus not come as a surprise, Yusuf said. She declined to divulge further details about the meeting. 

However, several well-placed sources with close knowledge of the deliberations said the meeting had gone well initially. A compromise on the contours of the SDF’s integration seemed to be finally reached after several draft proposals presented by the sides were exchanged and revised. Damascus had agreed to the establishment of three Kurdish-led divisions composed of SDF elements and three separate brigades, one for women fighters, another for counterterrorism units and another to guard borders lying in territories under Kurdish control. The sources said Damascus’ acquiescence, particularly with respect to letting the SDF guard a significant stretch of Syria’s borders albeit under the Defense Ministry’s command, spelled a significant softening of its approach as Sharaa had long advocated that the SDF dissolve itself and its members join the military individually.

Tom Barrack, the US special envoy to Syria, hinted as much in a post on X late on Thursday, hailing the truce that now lies in tatters. “Just this past week, we stood on the threshold of successfully concluding the March 10, 2025, integration agreement between the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Syrian government — an accord that would significantly advance security coordination, shared governance, and national unity,” Barrack wrote. “That objective remains eminently achievable,” the envoy added.

The sources briefing Al-Monitor said that numerous hiccups arose nonetheless, stemming from deeply ingrained distrust between the sides. Damascus has long demanded that its forces be allowed unfettered access to the Kurdish-controlled region, which is separated from the rest of the country by the Euphrates River. The SDF has resisted those demands, fearing that they would cement Damascus’ control ahead of a more comprehensive deal that would meet the Kurds’ own demands for a decentralized form of government. The SDF hence insisted that any time a convoy of government troops exceeding five vehicles entered the areas, it would need to be coordinated in advance with the SDF. Qasra insisted in turn that the government had the right to send reinforcements to what is Syria’s sovereign territory at will. The Syrian side also said that it would decide where the SDF divisions and brigades would be deployed as well as who would be commanding them.

Despite the differences, the SDF wanted the sides to publicly announce the broad outlines of what was agreed upon, something Damascus has avoided doing all along, by way of not formally committing the government to the preservation of the SDF in one form or the other. 

Accounts vary, but all the sources briefing Al-Monitor said that at a certain point, Syria’s foreign minister, Asaad al-Shibani, entered the room and soon after requested that Lambert and his aides leave. He then declared the meeting was over, saying the talks could resume on Jan. 8. 

SDF officials have accused Shibani of taking his cues from Ankara throughout the talks. While it’s impossible to prove, Turkey has loomed over the integration talks from the get-go and succeeded in preventing a round scheduled in Paris last year from taking place. Turkey views their outcome as directly linked to its own national security and has used its considerable influence over Damascus to ensure that the talks conclude in ways that do not threaten it. That means dismantling the SDF, which Ankara views as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party. 

The running theory in Syrian Kurdish officialdom is that the attack on Aleppo had been planned months ago with Ankara’s backing. Turkey has long demanded that all SDF-linked forces withdraw from areas lying to the west of the Euphrates River, Aleppo included. 

Since 2016, the Turkish military has staged several incursions to that end, notably in 2018, when it invaded the Kurdish-majority enclave of Afrin. In December 2024, as the Assad regime was collapsing, Turkey and its Sunni militant proxies drove the SDF out of its two remaining strongholds, Manbij and Tell Rifaat, that also lie west of the river. The aim is to disrupt a potentially contiguous stretch of SDF-held territory along its borders.

In January 2025, the United States began mediating between the SDF and Damascus for the withdrawal of armed fighters from the Aleppo neighborhoods. Those talks concluded in the April 1 agreement for all military combatants to withdraw and for the Kurds to continue to administer their own affairs and protect themselves with an internal police force called the Asayish. However, Damascus and Ankara continued to insist that numerous fighters and their heavy weapons remained. 

The SDF insists that those defending their neighborhoods are local residents who took up arms in the early days of the Syrian civil war. Some are formally part of the Asayish, but not all. It is these same groups who are vowing to fight on. The two neighborhoods have always been low-hanging fruit because of their isolation from the Kurdish-controlled northeast. Since October, the government has blocked land communications between the Kurdish-run zone and the rest of the country, leaving only one road — via Deir ez-Zor — open for travel. Those traveling from the northeast are subjected to numerous security checks along the way, most likely to prevent Kurdish forces from crossing over into government-held territory and from others aspiring to join the SDF to move in the opposite direction. 

With both neighborhoods fully encircled, it is virtually impossible to send reinforcements or ammunition. Unless the fighters agree to surrender, a long and bloody battle is likely to ensue and as in all conflicts, it is civilians who will likely pay the heaviest price.