Syria government agrees new truce with Kurdish forces / Photo: Bakr ALKASEM - AFP
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Syria government agrees new truce with Kurdish forces
Syria's government and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces agreed a new ceasefire on Tuesday as Washington said the SDF's purpose in fighting Islamic State group jihadists was largely over.
The announcement came after the army sent reinforcements to the Kurds' Hasakeh province stronghold in the northeast, and Kurdish forces withdrew from the Al-Hol camp which houses thousands of people with suspected IS links, including foreign women and children.
The latest truce opens the way for further talks on a deal announced Sunday between President Ahmed al-Sharaa and SDF chief Mazloum Abdi that includes integrating the Kurds' de facto autonomous administration into the state, in a major blow to the Kurds.
The SDF once controlled vast areas of north and east Syria which it seized fighting IS with support from a US-led international coalition.
But they have now withdrawn from Arab-majority Raqa and Deir Ezzor provinces after a government military escalation that began in Aleppo earlier this month.
The defence ministry in Damascus announced a four-day ceasefire starting Tuesday evening.
The SDF said it was committed to the truce and ready to "move forward with implementing" Sunday's agreement.
An AFP correspondent saw major military reinforcements moving towards Hasakeh province, while a military official said his tank convoy had "assault and defensive vehicles behind us for support".
Sharaa's Islamist forces toppled longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in 2024. The new authorities are seeking to extend state control across Syria, resetting international ties including with the United States, now a key ally.
- 'Largely expired'-
US envoy Tom Barrack said "the original purpose of the SDF as the primary anti-ISIS force on the ground has largely expired, as Damascus is now both willing and positioned to take over security responsibilities, including control of ISIS detention facilities and camps".
Syria's presidency on Tuesday announced a fresh "understanding" with the Kurds over the fate of Kurdish-majority areas of Hasakeh province, and gave the Kurds "four days for consultations to develop a detailed plan" for the area's integration.
If finalised, government forces "will not enter the city centres of Hasakeh and Qamishli... and Kurdish villages", it added.
In Hasakeh city earlier Tuesday, an AFP correspondent saw Kurdish residents including women and the elderly bearing weapons in support of the SDF, which patrolled and manned checkpoints.
Fighter Shahine Baz told AFP: "We promise our people to protect them until the end."
In northeast Syria's Qamishli, Hasina Hammo, 55, holding a Kalashnikov, said "we will not surrender".
Earlier Tuesday, the SDF said its forces "were compelled to withdraw from Al-Hol camp and redeploy" near north Syria cities "that are facing increasing risks and threat".
Northeast Syria's Kurdish-administered camps and prisons hold tens of thousands of people, many with alleged or perceived IS links, nearly seven years after the group's territorial defeat. Al-Hol is the largest camp.
The defence ministry said it was ready to take responsibility for Al-Hol camp "and all IS prisoners".
- 'Red line' -
SDF chief Abdi urged the coalition to "bear its responsibilities in protecting facilities" holding IS members.
"We withdrew to predominantly Kurdish areas and protecting them is a red line," he added.
Al-Hol director Jihan Hanan told AFP in December that the camp was home to more than 24,000 people, including thousands of foreigners.
The Kurds have repeatedly urged countries to take their citizens from the facility, which has a high-security section holding non-Syrian and non-Iraqi women and children, but most have repatriated only a trickle.
US President Donald Trump told the New York Post Tuesday he had helped stop a prison break of European jihadists in Syria, a day after the army accused the SDF of releasing IS detainees from the Shadadi prison. The Kurds said they lost control of the facility after an attack by Damascus.
The SDF on Monday had urged Kurds at home and abroad to "join the ranks of the resistance" in Syria.
The Kurds are spread across Syria, Iraq, Iran and Turkey, where the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) said it would "never abandon" Syria's Kurds.
Clashes erupted on the Syria-Turkey border on Tuesday between police and pro-Kurdish protesters angered by the Syrian military offensive, an AFP correspondent said.
Dozens of Kurds residing in Iraqi Kurdistan headed for Syria in response to the call, a correspondent there said.
Nadia Murad, the Iraqi Yazidi survivor of sexual slavery at the hands of IS, condemned what she said was the world's abandonment of Syria's Kurds.
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H.Gallo--IM
