Syria government, Kurdish forces agree sweeping integration to end clashes

By Mahmoud Hasano and Jaidaa Taha

TABQA, Jan 18 (Reuters) - Syria and the main Kurdish fighting force struck a wide-ranging deal to bring Kurdish civilian and military authorities under central government control on Sunday, ending days of fighting in which Syrian troops captured territory including key oil fields.

U.S. envoy Tom Barrack hailed a "pivotal inflection point", but noted that there was still challenging work to be done to finalise details of a comprehensive integration deal.

The terms of the deal appeared to be a major blow for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which ran a semi-autonomous region in Syria's northeast for more than a decade.

The SDF, which had no immediate comment, had resisted integration into the Islamist-led government that has ruled Syria since Bashar al-Assad was toppled in late 2024.

The 14-point deal published by Syria's presidency featured the signatures of both Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa and SDF head Mazloum Abdi, who appeared to have signed separately and are set to meet in Damascus on Monday, state media reported. 

NEW DEAL PRESENTS TOUGH TERMS

Syria's government and the SDF engaged in months of talks last year to bring Kurdish-run military and civilian bodies under Syrian state institutions by the end of 2025.

But after the deadline passed with little progress, clashes broke out and grew into a government offensive on Kurdish-held areas. Sunday's agreement said the clashes should end, although intermittent fighting was still reported in some areas.

The deal stipulates that all SDF forces will be merged into the central defence and interior ministries as "individuals" and not as whole Kurdish units. The latter had been a SDF demand.

It also says all border crossings, gas and oil fields and prisons and camps holding Islamic State fighters and affiliated civilians captured after the group's defeat in 2017 would be handed over, another point the SDF had long resisted. 

The government will formally take over two Arab-majority provinces from the SDF - Deir al-Zor, the country’s main oil- and wheat-producing area, and Raqqa, home to key hydroelectric dams along the Euphrates. Syrian state media published photos of residents in Raqqa celebrating the expected handover.

The deal did appear to offer some concessions. It said the SDF could nominate military and civilian figures to assume key roles in the central government and that Hasakeh province, which has a sizeable Kurdish population and is the main stronghold of the SDF, would have a governor appointed by consensus. 

It also commits the SDF to expelling all non-Syrian figures affiliated to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a Kurdish militant group which fought a decades-long insurgency in Turkey.

Sharaa had accused the PKK of hijacking SDF decision-making and preventing progress in integration, which the SDF denies. 

US CORNERED BETWEEN TWO ALLIES 

Turkey's foreign ministry said it hoped the "agreement will contribute to the security and peace of the Syrian people, as well as the entire region, particularly Syria's neighbours".

"With the recognition of the realities on the ground, we hope that all groups and individuals in the country fully understand that Syria's future lies not in terrorism and division, but in unity, integration and cohesion," it added.

The fighting has cornered the U.S. between its longtime support for the SDF as a key partner in fighting Islamic State, and its new backing for Sharaa, who has pledged to unite Syria under one central government that protects all Syrians. 

Barrack met with SDF head Abdi in the Kurdistan region of Iraq on Saturday and with Sharaa in Damascus on Sunday.

Syrian troops kept up their advance on Sunday even after the U.S. military had publicly urged them to stop. A senior Kurdish commander told Reuters before the deal was announced that the U.S. should intervene more forcefully to end the fighting.

Kurdish concerns about Sharaa's government have been deepened by bouts of sectarian violence last year, when nearly 1,500 Alawites were killed by government-aligned forces in western Syria and hundreds of Druze died in southern Syria, some in execution-style killings.

(Reporting by Damascus team, Jaidaa Taha and Ahmed Tolba; Writing by Maya Gebeily, Suleiman al Khalidi and Jaidaa Taha; Editing by Jane Merriman, David Holmes and Alexander Smith)