Syria on Friday said talks to integrate the U.S.-backed terrorist group YPG into the state have made no progress, even as the group’s leader insisted efforts are underway to keep the landmark deal with Damascus from collapsing and that failure was unlikely.
YPG leader Ferhat Abdi Şahin’s remarks came days after Aleppo saw deadly clashes between the two sides before their respective leaders ordered a cease-fire.
In March, Şahin signed a deal with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa to merge the YPG’s so-called “semi-autonomous administration” into the government by year's end, but differences have held up its implementation.
Abdi said the YPG remained committed to the deal, adding in a statement that the two sides were working toward "mutual understanding" on military integration and counterterrorism, and pledging further meetings with Damascus.
Downplaying the year-end deadline, he said the deal "did not specify a time limit for its ending or for the return to military solutions." He added that "all efforts are being made to prevent the collapse of this process" and that he considered failure unlikely.
Abdi also repeated the YPG’s demand for decentralization, which has been rejected by Syria's new authorities, who took power after ousting longtime dictator Bashar Assad last year.
The YPG is the U.S.-backed wing of the PKK terrorist group, which has killed over 40,000 people in Türkiye in a four-decade terror campaign. The YPG occupies large swathes of the country's oil-rich north and northeast, and enjoys the support of Washington under the pretext of fighting an international coalition against Daesh terrorists.
Türkiye, an important ally of Syria's new leaders, sees the presence of PKK/YPG on its border as a security threat.
In Damascus this week, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan stressed the importance of the YPG’s integration, having warned the week before that patience with the YPG "is running out."
Meanwhile, Damascus said the negotiations with the YPG yielded “no concrete results so far.”
A Syrian Foreign Ministry source on Friday told Syria’s state-run SANA news agency that the YPG’s statements regarding integration have so far remained “theoretical, with no concrete steps or clear timelines.”
The source said that despite the PKK/YPG's statements about ongoing dialogue with Damascus, talks have not produced concrete results on the ground, arguing that these statements are mostly used for “media purposes and to reduce political pressure.”
Regarding the oil issue, the official source stated that the PKK/YPG's claims that "Oil belongs to all Syrians" have lost credibility because the oil is not managed through state institutions and its revenues are not transferred to the general budget.
The source noted that the proposed decentralization model goes beyond the administrative framework, threatening the unity of the state with its political and security dimensions and making de facto structures permanent.
The Foreign Ministry source also emphasized that using unilateral control over border crossings and borders as a bargaining chip contradicts the principles of national sovereignty.
