Syria announces ceasefire agreement with Kurd-led SDF after heavy fighting

According to Syrian state media, the Syrian government has announced a ceasefire with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) that will require the latter’s forces to leave areas west of the Euphrates River.

SDF forces will also be able to join Syria under the terms of the agreement on Sunday.

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The SDF and the Syrian government have been fighting for days in northeastern Syria, leading to the signing of the agreement. Over strategic posts and oilfields along the Euphrates River, the army and the SDF had been fighting.

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa stated in a statement in Damascus that the agreement will allow the SDF to occupy three of its former rulers, al-Hasakah, Deir Az Zor, and Raqqa.

Our Arab tribes should continue to be composed and allow for the terms of the agreement to be carried out, according to al-Sharaa.

The SDF administration in charge of ISIL (ISIS) detainees and camps and the security forces guarding the facilities will now be integrated into the nation’s state structure, giving the government full legal and security responsibility.

In order to ensure national partnership, the SDF will make a list of leaders for the central government’s senior military, security, and civilian positions.

Al-Sharaa met with American Special Envoy to Syria Tom Barrack in Damascus to make the announcement. Mazloum Abdi, the head of the SDF, was supposed to attend the meeting, but al-Sharaa claimed that the weather had prevented him from traveling until Monday due to the situation.

‘Victory’

Ayman Oghanna, a journalist in the Syrian capital, reported that the agreement “can be seen as a victory” for the Syrian government.

According to Syrian state media, the SDF-controlled governorates will be handed over to the military under the terms of the agreement, as well as civilian institutions.

“Total control of all border crossings and oil and gas fields will be assumed by the Syrian government.”

Fighting has periodically broken out between the two sides in recent months, increasing in ferocity this month, as a previous agreement from March that included the integration of SDF forces into the Syrian military was not implemented.

The Syrian army moved further into towns in the SDF-held territory on Saturday, though.

The army had taken control of the major Freedom dam, which was formerly known as the Baath, west of Tabqa, as well as the northern city of Tabqa and its adjacent dam, according to state media.

In a significant blow to the SDF, the army also seized the largest oil field in the country, the Omar oilfield, and the Conoco gas field in Deir Az Zor. Al-Sharaa claimed last week that the SDF’s claim to have a quarter of the nation’s main oil and other commodity resources was unacceptable.

The SDF’s political isolation, according to Gamal Mansour, a University of Toronto political science lecturer, partially accounts for their swift retreat.

The issue that SDF has is that sometimes you have arms, but your political situation, lack of backing, strategic and regional background, etc., he told Al Jazeera.

Iraqi Kurdistan read the SDF’s regional image and strategic approach in a way that caused them to go to the SDF and say, “You need to cooperate with the Americans so that you can have a peaceful relationship with the Syrian government,” he said, adding that the US has also stated this.

Arab tribes in SDF-controlled areas, whose loyalty to the SDF was already fragile because of dissatisfaction with their rule, Kurdish nationalist dominance, and a lack of economic investment, contributed to the Syrian government’s rapid advance, according to Mansour.