The United States is satisfied with the “trajectory” in Syria, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Sunday, following an agreement between the government and the U.S.-backed YPG terror group last month.
"There's been some days that have been very concerning, but we like the trajectory," Rubio said on a brief visit to Bratislava. "We have to keep it on that trajectory. We've got good agreements in place."
Rubio added, however, that a deal between Syrian authorities and the YPG must now be implemented.
"That's not going to be easy and there other such agreements that they need to reach with the Druze, with the Bedouins, with the Alawites, with all the elements of a very diverse society in Syria," Rubio said.
The YPG is the Syrian wing of the PKK. The PKK's attacks under the pretext of a struggle to establish a self-styled Kurdish state, cost thousands of lives since the 1980s. The YPG pursues a similar agenda in Syria and declared parts of northeastern Syria as an autonomous region. The group aims "decentralization" of Syria to carve out a Kurdish entity.
Syrian leaders in Damascus and YPG officials announced in January, after months of deadlock and armed clashes, that they had reached an agreement to integrate YPG and YPG-held areas of Syria into the Syrian state.
The PKK/YPG created a self-styled so-called Kurdish state in northeast of the country during Syria's civil war (2011-2024).
The United States had supported the PKK/YPG under the pretext of fighting Daesh terrorists.
But after the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad at the end of 2024, the President Donald Trump's administration backed Syrian leader Ahmad al-Sharaa, whose anti-regime forces drove Assad from power, in his bid to impose authority over the entire country.
Rubio on Sunday defended the administration's embrace of al-Sharaa, even against the former YPG allies, by arguing that Washington faced a difficult decision in Syria.
The process, "as difficult as it's been, is far better than a Syria that would've been broken up into eight pieces with all kinds of fighting going on, all kinds of mass migration," Rubio said. "So we were very positive about that."
