How Syria Can Succeed in Integrating the Kurds

Commentary by Mona Yacoubian and Will Todman

Published January 22, 2026

Intensified conflict between the Syrian transition government (STG) and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) poses the most significant threat to Syria's fragile transition to date. The SDF overplayed its hand in negotiations with the STG, but now President Ahmed al-Sharaa risks similar overreach. A shaky four-day ceasefire is set to expire on January 24. Good faith gestures from Sharaa that bridge the gap between the imperatives of a unified Syria and Kurdish demands for community-led protection and local autonomy in Kurdish-majority areas are critical at this moment and can serve as an important off-ramp for conflict. Otherwise, Syria's transition could be derailed, with significant ripple effects across Syria and the wider region.

Background to Tensions

Early in Syria's post-Assad transition, Kurdish integration stood out as among the most challenging issues facing the transition government. A March 2025 integration agreement aimed to establish a process for folding Kurdish-led governance and security entities into the Damascus-led transition government by the end of 2025. It called for border crossings and oil and gas facilities in SDF-controlled areas of Syria's northeast to come under transition government control but did not offer details on the thornier challenge of integrating the Kurdish-led SDF.

The agreement's implementation remained stalled over the intervening months, which were punctuated by periods of tension and even clashes between the transition government and the SDF. These tensions flared more significantly in early January, when simmering disputes between the two sides erupted into larger conflict in Aleppo. STG forces successfully pushed Kurdish fighters out of the Aleppo neighborhoods, a prelude to a broader lightning offensive by Damascus, effectively routing Kurdish forces from Arab-majority regions of the Raqqa and Deir Zor governorates.

The SDF Overplayed Its Hand

Several key miscalculations facilitated the SDF's rout. First, the SDF miscalculated the degree to which power dynamics had shifted in favor of the STG. President Sharaa had gradually secured his position internationally and concentrated his focus on Syria's territorial integrity. U.S.-mediated talks between Israelis and Syrians in Paris in early January decreased tensions in southern Syria and allowed Sharaa to focus his attention on the northeast. Yet, despite Sharaa's growing power, the SDF continued to adopt a maximalist stance in integration talks and refused to make concessions.

Second, the SDF overestimated U.S. backing. In fact, the STG essentially replaced the SDF as the United States' primary partner in Syria, particularly following Sharaa's decision to join the anti-ISIS coalition in November 2025, which dramatically eroded the SDF's unique value to the United States. In the following months, the STG demonstrated its ability to contribute to anti-ISIS efforts through several partnered operations with U.S. forces. The STG reportedly floated operations into SDF-held territory in the Paris meetings with U.S. and Israeli officials and received no objections. Damascus's operation against Kurdish fighters in Aleppo revealed U.S. reticence to push back on the government's anti-SDF operations.

Third, the SDF failed to secure the backing of local populations in many Arab-majority parts of the territory it controlled. As the STG advanced, Arab elements of the SDF defected and locals rose up in support of the STG. The SDF lost control of key strategic assets, such as oil and gas fields and dams, key sources of its leverage over Damascus.

Sharaa Risks Overplaying His Hand

The SDF overplayed its hand, and Sharaa must not do the same. If the ceasefire collapses and the STG advances into Kurdish-majority urban centers such as Hasakeh and Kobane, violence will escalate significantly. Even if the STG secures control of these areas, a prolonged Kurdish-led insurgency is likely. The STG's rapid advances have garnered warnings from senior U.S. officials such as Senator Lindsey Graham, who threatened that the United States could reimpose sanctions on Syria. Reports of besiegement and abuses against Kurdish fighters and civilians risk escalating intercommunal tensions significantly, particularly amid an apparent internet blackout in Kobane.

Other Syrian minorities, such as the Druze in southern Syria, will watch the events in northeast Syria closely. For Sharaa to avoid further rounds of conflict, he must prove that his quest to entrench his sovereignty over all of Syria's territory does not pose an existential threat to minority-led factions. Additional concessions and confidence-building measures are critical.

Unresolved tensions between the Syrian Kurds and the transition government would generate broader negative reverberations. Ongoing conflict with the Kurds could allow for an ISIS resurgence in both Syria and Iraq. Already, amid the current violence, the U.S. military estimates that 200 low-level ISIS fighters have escaped from Shaddadi prison, although many have been recaptured. Fearful of the potential for larger-scale prison breaks, CENTCOM launched an operation to transfer ISIS detainees from Syria to Iraq, transporting 150 prisoners and noting that up to 7,000 could be moved to Iraq.

Certainly, the ensuing chaos of deepening conflict between the Kurds and the transition government would create conditions favorable to an ISIS resurgence. ISIS cells are well placed to exploit the security and governance vacuums that could emerge in some of these areas. Moreover, distracted by Kurdish threats and at times lacking discipline, Syrian transition security forces may not effectively secure ISIS-related detention sites, leading to prison breaks that can replenish ISIS forces on the ground. And Syria's often porous border with Iraq underscores that the threat would not be contained to Syria but could reverberate back into Iraq.

A Kurdish insurgency in northeast Syria would also contribute to broader regional instability centered on mounting separatism.

Separatist threats and actions have already provoked even greater instability in south Yemen, Sudan, and Somalia. Failure to successfully integrate the Kurds in Syria would add yet another active separatist conflict to the region and could also encourage other Syrian separatists, notably in Druze-majority areas of southern Syria.

Building Trust

While the transition government has emerged in a more powerful position with this latest episode of violence, failure to integrate the Kurds successfully could derail transition efforts. Elements of the January 18 integration agreement could be amended to bridge the most serious gaps:

• Perhaps the most pressing SDF demand is protection in Kurdish-majority areas, which SDF head General Mazloum Abdi termed a "red line." Establishing Kurdish community police forces that report to the Ministry of Interior in all Kurdish-majority regions could assuage these most visceral fears.
• The presidential decree appointing a governor of Hasakeh governorate should explicitly reference General Mazloum as governor and perhaps grant him authority over a list of SDF members to serve in leadership positions in the central government military and security structures.
• Presidential Decree No. 13 (2026), which recognizes Kurdish cultural and linguistic rights, should be elevated to a constitutional amendment, enshrining these rights into law. Renaming the Syrian Arab Republic to the Syrian Republic could serve as a broader signal of inclusion to Syria's many minorities.

These workarounds could go far in cementing the ceasefire and advancing Kurdish integration into a new Syria. If successful, the agreement could also serve as an important template for other minority groups such as the Druze. It could launch a virtuous cycle in which compromise to secure the buy-in of one key minority group engenders faith by others that they too can find a place in the new united Syria.

Mona Yacoubian is director and senior adviser of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Will Todman is the chief of staff of the Geopolitics and Foreign Policy Department and a senior fellow in the Middle East Program at CSIS.

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