Unconfirmed reports on Sunday said Ferhat Abdi Şahin, leader of the U.S.-backed terrorist group YPG, held a phone call with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa. Earlier reports have claimed that Şahin would travel to Damascus for talks with al-Sharaa and U.S. envoy Tom Barrack. The phone call was “positive” according to media reports.
The Syrian government, meanwhile, announced that al-Sharaa hosted Barrack at the presidential palace on Sunday.
The YPG has engaged in clashes with the Syrian army for two weeks now and lost control of several districts in and around Aleppo. On Sunday, the Syrian army and tribal forces opposing the YPG managed to recapture more areas in Deir ez-Zour, further pushing back the YPG into its stronghold in the northeast. Among the captured areas are oil fields and a key dam, while clashes escalated around Tishreen, a critical dam in the north controlled by the terrorist group.
In the meantime, Şahin spoke to a media outlet linked to the YPG and urged “people to unite around fighting forces.” Şahin told ANHA that they were trying to ease tensions “with the mediation of international powers, and they were working to maintain calm and a cease-fire.”
Escalated offensive by the Syrian army comes after the YPG refused to fully comply with a 2025 deal to integrate into the Syrian army and preferred to retain control of several areas in the north, which it captured amid a security vacuum created by the Syrian civil war. The revolution led by al-Sharaa ended the war in late 2024, and since then, the new administration in Damascus has been working to unite all ethnic and religious groups in the country to rebuild Syria. The YPG claims to represent Syrian Kurds, but Damascus rejects that the ongoing situation is a conflict between Arabs and Kurds.
