An agreement announced on 30 January by Damascus and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) may mark a historic breakthrough in avoiding conflict and defining governance arrangements in north-eastern Syria. It establishes a comprehensive ceasefire, sparing the north east what could have been an ugly showdown that would have been devastating for civilians and costly to both sides. It also sets out a balanced, pragmatic approach to integrating the remaining armed forces and areas under SDF control into the Syrian state.

At its core, the 30 January agreement (whose text Crisis Group has seen) provides for a permanent ceasefire and a phased approach to security, military and administrative integration in north-eastern Syria. It also reflects agreements on military withdrawal by both parties from major cities; the integration of SDF forces and internal security bodies into Syria’s central defence and interior ministries; and compromise appointments of officials to certain provincial posts. The deal additionally covers the SDF’s handover of strategic assets such as oil fields and Qamishli international airport to the central government; the restoration of state control of civil institutions and border crossings in the north east; the recognition of Kurdish-issued educational certificates by the Syrian state; and commitments to guarantee the safe return of displaced people.

The road to this accord has been difficult. Earlier opportunities to negotiate a peaceful transition were missed. The failure to arrive at protocols for implementing a March 2025 agreement by an end-of-year deadline set the stage for three weeks of armed confrontation that left dozens dead on both sides, while inflicting deep wounds on northern Syrian society. By reaching this new accord, the top echelons of the Syrian government and SDF have shown leadership in stepping back from the path of military confrontation, and demonstrated willingness to compromise, even as tensions on the ground skyrocketed.

The agreement offers genuine cause for optimism in north-eastern Syria and beyond. Not only does it provide a framework capable of stabilising areas that have been under SDF control, but it creates a template and tools that could be used to improve trust and inclusive governance in other parts of the country with large minority populations. Still, significant challenges and ambiguities remain, and sustained dialogue will be essential as the parties begin to fulfil their pledges. Even as Syrians welcome this moment, many will do so warily, with the breakdown of previous understandings between the two sides still fresh in mind. In order to maximise the prospects for success this time round, Damascus, the SDF and mediators led by U.S. Special Envoy Tom Barrack should focus on the following challenges ahead.

The two parties have repeatedly agreed to ceasefire arrangements that neither has fully observed. Most recently, on 18 January, the sides committed to an “immediate and comprehensive ceasefire”. Yet despite that announcement, intermittent clashes, shelling and drone strikes continued for several days along the front lines.

In order to avert a descent into renewed violence, it is imperative that both sides now take concrete steps to ensure that this ceasefire holds. U.S. mediators, in particular, should impress upon the parties the dangers of overplaying their hands. It is especially important that the SDF take heed: over the past year, it has tended to overestimate its political and military leverage, leading it to forgo negotiation opportunities and surrender much of its bargaining power. As talks continue, the SDF should resist the temptation to once again overreach. It should avoid banking on unrealistic scenarios if negotiations break down, such as Israeli intervention, which its leadership openly appealed for during the latest round of fighting.

But the U.S. team should also convey to Damascus that it, too, faces risks if it backslides. The Syrian government, in other words, should not place too much confidence in unconditional White House backing. That support has certainly been strong to date, underwritten by a bond between U.S. President Donald Trump and Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, but it is not impervious to changes in circumstance. It could erode, particularly if rekindled fighting moves into Kurdish population centres resulting in major civilian casualties associated with credible reports of atrocities. If that were to happen, influential voices in the U.S. media, Congress and military – including some in Trump’s orbit – might push for Washington to alter its approach.

Given their starkly different backgrounds, social bases and priorities, there is naturally a great deal that the SDF and Damascus have disagreed upon over their months of negotiations. Yet from the beginning, a core divergence stood out as both the most difficult but most important to bridge: how centralised the Syrian state should be and how much autonomy the SDF should retain in the north east.

This question is particularly salient as regards the military and security sectors, the most influential means by which the state exercises its authority. The SDF has resisted centralisation, aiming instead for primarily symbolic integration. Prior to the recent weeks of confrontation, it had floated formulas under which the SDF would formally incorporate itself into the state’s structure (eg, by adopting the government’s nomenclature and establishing a light central administrative presence), while keeping a decisive upper hand on the ground in the north east. To the Syrian government (and many other observers), this proposal appeared akin to the degree of self-rule enjoyed by the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq. For its part, Damascus is open to lighter forms of “administrative decentralisation” that might, for example, devolve more fiscal and administrative authority from central to provincial governments. But its preferred approach falls far short of affording the SDF the autonomy it is seeking. In particular, the state has insisted on ending the SDF’s military monopoly in north-eastern Syria and ensuring that Damascus enjoys actual, not merely formal, command and control of forces under arms. 

The two sides’ failure to narrow their differences over months of negotiations in 2025 helped precipitate their recent confrontation, in which Damascus gained huge swathes of territory at the SDF’s expense and thereby settled the question for much of the north east. The agreement reached on 30 January thus focused on areas that nevertheless remained under SDF control. Those include Kobani and other Kurdish-majority towns near Syria’s northern border, as well as the larger cities of Hassaka (a provincial capital) and Qamishli (location of a key border crossing with Türkiye), both of which are diverse and home to large Kurdish populations.

Against this backdrop, the 30 January agreement partially addresses the centralisation issue as follows: 

• Reflecting an SDF desire to maintain some force cohesion even as it integrates its troops into the Syrian military, it provides for the establishment of a Syrian army division in Hassaka province composed largely of SDF forces, as well as a similar brigade in Kobani to be incorporated within a division affiliated with Aleppo province. In December, Damascus had offered the SDF even more – three full divisions – but it adjusted the terms to reflect the shift in power after its subsequent gains. That said, the deal gives the SDF more than was included in the rushed agreement the two sides reached at the height of their confrontation on 18 January, which contemplated that integration would occur purely on an individual rather than unit basis.
• It outlines a formula for securing the diverse and strategically important cities of Hassaka and Qamishli. SDF units will withdraw, but the Syrian army will not enter. A limited number of central security forces will deploy to each city, beginning a process of integrating SDF-affiliated internal security forces into the interior ministry.
• It includes a compromise on appointments to senior security and administrative positions in Hassaka province; and it provides that the Syrian government will assume control of civil institutions there while retaining employees who have served in the SDF-aligned administration.
• It establishes a broader commitment that neither side will deploy military forces into cities or towns, noting the importance of this principle for Kurdish-majority areas. Yet it does not lay out a clear formula for how local security forces affiliated with the SDF in those areas will be incorporated into the central government.
• It affirms that the central government will assume authority over border crossings from SDF-controlled territory into Iraq and Türkiye, though without delving into detail on what the transfer of that authority will entail and what forms of cooperation might ensue.

Still, more compromise will be needed if the agreement is to hold. It leaves unresolved key questions concerning security arrangements in Kurdish population centres and border management. These are complex issues that will need to be addressed through continued dialogue and concerted effort by both sides. As negotiations proceed, the SDF will need to accept that it will not maintain a monopoly on local security. For its part, the government should approach issues with as much flexibility as it can manage, recognising that it has an opportunity to establish a model that affirms central command and control while expanding participation and building public trust both in the north east and elsewhere. Some considerations that could inform discussions include: 

• In Kurdish-majority towns, the guiding principle could be to encourage devolution of day-to-day security responsibility to local personnel, while enabling unfettered access to the central interior ministry. It could allow Kurds now serving in the SDF and its internal security forces (including the women’s protection unit known as the YPJ) to compose the backbone of local security forces and police, but with the central government free to dispatch senior officers, patrols and (if necessary) reinforcements at its discretion as Damascus maintains ultimate command and control.
• Meanwhile, checkpoints incorporating Kurdish and Arab personnel from the SDF and government forces could be established between Kurdish and Arab-majority towns where local tensions appear high, to be maintained as long as necessary. These could be a joint operation under government auspices, in contrast to the parallel-but-separate checkpoints that previously isolated the SDF-controlled neighbourhood of Sheikh Maqsoud from the rest of Aleppo city. In addition to helping protect communities from violent actors, these might become a model for other forms of operational integration within population centres.
• In the diverse cities of Hassaka and Qamishli, a hybrid approach to security could be employed in which the interior ministry’s General Security Service plays a hands-on role in policing Arab-majority areas, while giving space to Kurdish personnel drawn from SDF-affiliated forces to take the lead in Kurdish neighbourhoods, under central command and control.
• Securing and administering Syria’s north-eastern borders presents another set of complex challenges. The northern frontier with Türkiye is especially sensitive, given longstanding tensions between the SDF and Ankara, as well as Turkish concerns that the border area has been used as a staging ground for Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) attacks inside Türkiye. The main crossing between the north east and Türkiye is located on the edge of downtown Qamishli, further complicating the challenge of devising security arrangements for the diverse city. The economic benefits of opening the crossing are clear to both countries, as well as to Syrians throughout the north east, but reaching a mutually acceptable formula for doing so will require extensive further discussions among the SDF, Damascus and Ankara.
• The situation on the eastern border with Iraq is similarly complicated. The unofficial Semelka/Faysh Khabour crossing with Iraqi Kurdistan has for years served as north-eastern Syria’s economic lifeline, without which the SDF could not have maintained such a high degree of autonomy. As the broader border area has also provided a logistical link between the SDF and PKK, it is a major concern for Türkiye. This matter, too, will require further compromises to address, first between Damascus and the SDF, and then to secure buy-in from Ankara, Erbil and maybe also the Iraqi central authorities in Baghdad.

Both sides should think creatively about other means of facilitating integration while building trust. For example, the Syrian government could expand its recruitment of military and security forces in Kurdish and other minority areas. To help do so, it could adjust the doctrines and training course curricula of these institutions to fully embrace Syria’s cultural and religious diversity, helping secular Syrians and those outside the majority Sunni Arab community feel welcome in the ranks. Senior government officials already acknowledge that this step is necessary.

President al-Sharaa could commit to enshrining his 16 January presidential decree on Kurdish rights in the future Syrian constitution, directly addressing a longstanding SDF demand. Damascus could also ensure meaningful SDF and Kurdish representation on the committee tasked with drafting the new constitution.

Finally, Damascus could move quickly to make good on other elements of the 30 January agreement, including appointing SDF nominees to senior government positions in Damascus – while ensuring that those roles carry real authority – and facilitating the rapid, safe return of civilians displaced from Kurdish areas.

As they work their way through these challenges, Damascus, the SDF and U.S. mediators should remain focused on a clear bottom line: whatever further compromises might be necessary to define integration and bring it to fruition, these will be preferable to the costs and risks of fighting to the finish. The 30 January agreement offers Syria’s north east a chance at lasting peace – and all concerned should grab it.