A bargaining chip: the Syrian authorities and the Kurdish forces have reached an agreement

The Syrian authorities and the Kurdish forces in the country have agreed on a truce ending almost two weeks of military clashes. The agreement includes 14 points, among them the transfer of control of oil and gas fields in the territories controlled by the Kurds to Damascus. Details can be found in the Izvestia article.

Give it to me

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa announced that an agreement had been reached with the head of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Mazlum Abdi. The agreement provides for a cease—fire after the advance of government troops into the Kurdish-controlled areas in the north and east of the country - Hasaka, Deir ez-Zor and Raqqa, Alaraby TV reports.

The document contains 14 points, including the transfer of all Kurdish militia fighters to the Syrian army, the integration of all civilian institutions in Hasaka province into state institutions, senior positions in the country's armed forces for some SDF leaders, as well as the transfer of oil fields controlled by the Kurds to the government.

In turn, the Syrian authorities undertake not to strike at the SDF and employees of self-government bodies in eastern Syria. Damascus will assume responsibility for prisons and detention camps housing tens of thousands of foreign IS fighters (ISIL, an organization recognized as a terrorist organization and banned in Russia) and their families.

In addition, Syrian President al-Sharaa signed a decree recognizing the cultural and linguistic rights of the Kurds, including granting the Kurdish language the status of an official language and declaring the Kurdish New Year a national holiday. This was the first official recognition of the rights of this people since 1946, when Syria gained independence from France.

Damascus also confirmed its participation in the United States-led coalition against ISIS.

Clashes between Kurdish forces and the Syrian army resumed at the end of last year. By mid-January, the districts of Sheikh Maqsood and Ashrafiya were under the control of the authorities.

After that, Government forces advanced into the Arabic-speaking areas in the northeast of the country held by the SDF. Most of the province of Deir ez-Zor, the main oil-producing and grain-producing region of the country, was under the control of the Syrian government.

In particular, we are talking about the Omar oil field and the Konoko gas field, as well as the largest dam on the Euphrates and the strategically important city of Tabqa, located near Raqqa.

The oil fields east of the Euphrates are the main source of income for the Kurds. The Syrian president considered it unacceptable that the militias controlled the main raw materials in the country.

Not friends or partners

The territories of compact residence of Kurds are Turkish, Iraqi, Iranian and Syrian Kurdistan. The first one on this list is the largest in terms of area and number of Kurds. At the same time, the Kurds themselves are divided into two large subethnoses — the Kurmanji, who live in Turkey, Syria and the northern regions of Iraqi Kurdistan, and the Sorani, who live in Iraq and Iran. There are smaller subethnoses, but they do not play a special role in the politics of the Middle East.

A de facto independent Kurdish state was formed in Iraq — the Kurdistan Region of the Republic of Iraq.

Kurds in Syria usually inhabit areas in the north and northeast of the country, considered Western Kurdistan. It is with the Turks that they have the most difficult relations.

Ankara does not distinguish between the Kurds from the Syrian Autonomous Region and the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which is banned in Turkey. Since 2016, the country has been conducting ground operations and airstrikes on territories controlled by the Kurds.

According to Alina Sbitneva, a researcher at the Department of the Middle and Post-Soviet East at the INION RAS, Ankara justifies such operations against Kurdish groups with self-defense measures and the need to combat the terrorist threat.

Last July, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has waged a guerrilla war against Turkey since the 1980s, began to disarm. Now, having learned about the agreement signed on January 18, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan contacted Syrian leader Ahmad al-Sharaa by phone, confirming Ankara's readiness to continue supporting Damascus in the fight against terrorism.

Danila Krylov, a researcher at the Department of the Middle and Post-Soviet East at the INION RAS, Candidate of Political Sciences, noted in a conversation with Izvestia that the Kurdish formations have always been pro-American, even though the Americans have abandoned their positions several times in the history of the Syrian campaign since 2011, leaving the Kurds alone with the Turks.
According to him, as soon as the Americans weakened their support for the Kurds, and the Turks received a signal directly or indirectly from the Americans that the United States would not interfere with a military operation in the region, the Kurds immediately moved closer to the authorities in Damascus.

— They have never had good, close relations with Russia, they are not our friends or even partners, — says the political scientist.

They always bet on the wrong ones.

Fyodor Lukyanov, a political scientist and editor-in-chief of Russia in Global Affairs magazine, believes that the Syrian government forces' ousting of Kurdish units from the areas they controlled, as well as their integration into the Syrian official SDF army, on which the Americans relied heavily, was a major success for the al-Sharaa and Turkish governments.

"The United States nods favorably, now the Syrian government is considered more promising than recent allies," the political scientist believes. In turn, INF expert Anton Mardasov believes that Damascus's entry into the coalition to fight ISIS was primarily pushed through by the Sunni monarchies, not the United States.

— The Arab monarchies, for whom some Eastern tribes are related, deliberately locked up power in Damascus, as in 2019. Therefore, against this background, France became more active in 2025, which, taking advantage of the moment, began to position itself again as the defender of the Kurdish component," the political scientist believes.

He added that Turkey's pressure is being exerted not only on the Kurds and Damascus, but also on the tribes.

— The scenario of cooperation between the Kurdish National Council and the tribes of the east for the SDF opposition, which would suit the United States, has been discussed for 7 years. This is a long—standing trend that Biden could change, he had the opportunity," the expert recalled.

However, according to him, the previous administration rejected this option, leaving everything at the mercy of the Central Command.

— At that time, it acted in a straightforward military manner to strengthen and optimize its military presence. More interesting issues are the problems of timing and the connection with pressure on Iran and the further competition of the SDF leadership not so much with Damascus and the tribes, but with the United States and regional players," the analyst concluded.

As a source in the Turkish Foreign Ministry explained to Izvestia, the fact that the United States did not interfere with the operation of the Syrian government army, and the US ambassador to Turkey and the special representative of the American president for Syria, Tom Barrack, played a role in signing the agreement between Damascus and the Kurdish forces, convinced Ankara that "a new era in cooperation has begun." Washington with the SDF."

"Two points of the January 18 agreement indicate that there will now be a new stage in the fight against ISIS, and this is very important in terms of meeting Turkey's long—standing demands," he explained.

According to the source, the point is that now the Syrian government will be responsible for protecting prisons where ISIS prisoners are held and camps where their families are located.

— This point was one of the demands that Turkey has long put forward. In general, the Kurds always bet on the wrong people and ended up being a bargaining chip in the relations of other countries," the source concluded.