This agreement represents an important step in unifying the country's diverse communities after a decade of civil war.
The agreement also establishes the formal recognition of the Kurdish community as an essential part of the Syrian state, granting citizenship to tens of thousands of people who were deprived of it during the decades of Assad's regime.
"We consider this agreement a real opportunity to build a new Syria that encompasses all its components and ensures good neighborliness," stated Mazloum Abdi, general commander of the SDF, in a statement published on X.
However, doubts persist about how the integration of the SDF into Syrian state institutions will be carried out, noted Natasha Hall, senior researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Hall highlighted that the terms of the agreement align with the SDF's previous demands, which had been rejected by Sharaa.
"For now, the SDF is allowed to retain their weapons and basically maintain the same structure they had in the northeast, which could lead to further fragmentation in the future," she warned.
This development also comes almost two weeks after Abdullah Öcalan, Kurdish activist leader, urged his followers from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) to lay down their arms and dissolve the group, which could end a decades-long conflict with Türkiye. This confrontation has caused at least 40,000 deaths and has impacted Kurdish militancy throughout the region.
The new regime in Syria announced a historic agreement with the Syrian Democratic Forces, led by the Kurds, to integrate them into state institutions, in an attempt to unify the country's diverse communities after a decade of civil war.
The Syrian leader Ahmad al-Sharaa communicated on Monday that the pact with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), led by the Kurds, aims, according to him, to "guarantee the rights of all Syrians in representation and participation in the political process and all state institutions based on competence, regardless of their religious and ethnic backgrounds."
This agreement represents a significant achievement for Sharaa, who was attempting to overcome Syria's internal divisions, and comes after the deadliest clashes since the fall of Bashar al-Assad at the end of last year, with more than 1,000 dead and reports of executions of Christian, Alawite, and Druze civilians by the Syrian regime forces.
As part of his strategy to consolidate control, Sharaa urged all armed factions, including Kurdish forces, to integrate into the national army. The People's Protection Units (YPG), a key terrorist faction within the SDF, had requested the creation of special units within the army as a condition for joining, but this demand was rejected by Sharaa.
