Syria

On the Recent Agreement Between Damascus and the Kurdish Administration

Tuesday 3 February 2026, by Gilbert Achcar

How should we interpret the recent agreement between the Syrian Kurdish movement and the new Syrian government? Does it mark the end of a decade of Kurdish self-administration in northeastern Syria? Or is it merely a temporary arrangement, destined to join the long list of Middle Eastern agreements announced as final, only to collapse shortly thereafter? Answering this question requires an assessment of both the nature of the agreement itself and the circumstances that produced it.


The first point to note is that the agreement announced last Friday constitutes a compromise in which the balance tilts in favour of the regime in Damascus. It is a compromise insofar as it was concluded between two parties, neither of which has lost the ability to continue fighting. Indeed, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), even after being largely reduced to their predominantly Kurdish core, still retain substantial military strength in the current Syrian balance of power. They command tens of thousands of seasoned fighters—men and women alike—motivated by a national cause forged through a century of partition and oppression. Moreover, their political backbone rests on an ideological current that has adapted to historical changes, thus remaining deeply rooted.

By contrast, the forces of the new Syrian regime are not significantly larger than the Kurdish forces and lack cohesion. They constitute a hybrid coalition composed of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, other jihadist groups (some of them non-Syrian), and forces directly loyal to Ankara—units belonging to the so-called Syrian National Army.

This configuration means that the existing balance of power would allow the Kurdish side to resist Damascus’s forces for a considerable period, provided it received external support to prevent isolation and encirclement. However, both actors capable of providing such support have betrayed the Syrian Kurdish movement. The first, of course, is the United States, which under the current Trump administration has shifted from relying on the SDF in the fight against ISIS to relying on Turkey and the new Syrian regime sponsored by Ankara. The second is the Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraq, led by the Barzani family, close allies of Ankara (see last week’s article, “The Kurds and the Syrian Regime”, Al-Quds Al-Arabi, 27 January 2026).

Conversely, the forces of the new Damascus regime enjoy unwavering and unlimited Turkish support in their confrontation with the Kurdish movement. Faced with this reality, the SDF is left with two bitter options: surrender or wage a war to preserve its dignity—a war that risks becoming suicidal, akin to some of the heroic, yet ultimately vain, epic struggles witnessed throughout history. As a result, the SDF opted for compromise in order to buy time, hoping for a change in circumstances, whether at the regional level – given the region’s persistent volatility – or at the international level, given Donald Trump’s unpredictability, his susceptibility to pressure from Netanyahu that counterbalances Erdoğan’s influence, and the possibility therefore that his position may yet shift.

For its part, the Damascus regime also preferred compromise to launching a fierce northern war that could undermine its efforts to consolidate control over the rest of Syrian territory or further deepen its dependence on Ankara, thereby harming its image and limiting its ambitions. The compromise entailed Damascus abandoning its demand for the immediate dissolution of Kurdish self-administration and its armed forces, as well as its insistence on deploying large contingents of regime forces into the core of SDF-controlled areas. Instead, the agreement provided for the initiation of limited steps—whose interpretation may still be disputed—toward integrating these areas into the military, administrative, and legal framework of the new Syrian state.

There is therefore little doubt that the present compromise has not resolved the conflict but has instead shifted it from a military to a political phase. This new phase will involve a political struggle that continues the war by other means, just as war itself is a continuation of politics by other means, as the maxim goes. The Kurdish side will seek to preserve the de facto self-administration it has exercised for a decade, in fulfilment of its legitimate aspiration to self-determination, even if this administration is formally integrated into the Syrian state. Meanwhile, Ankara will persistently and relentlessly pressure Damascus to intensify its demands for full Kurdish surrender and submission to centralized rule.

The question, then, is whether Washington can restrain both sides – the Kurds and the Turks – so as to keep the situation within the bounds of a compromise that each side publicly claims to accept. This is a very uncertain wager. It is more likely that the fragility of last Friday’s agreement will soon become evident, and that the language – and perhaps even the practice – of war will once again prevail over the language of consensus, with this agreement followed by others just as temporary, in a pattern all too familiar in this part of the world.

3 February 2026

Translated from the Arabic original published in Al-Quds al-Arabi for the author’s blog. Feel free to republish or to publish in other languages, with mention of the source.


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Gilbert Achcar grew up in Lebanon. He is currently Professor of Development Studies and International Relations at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London. A regular and historical contributor to the press of the Fourth International, his books include The Clash of Barbarisms. The Making of the New World Disorder (2006), The Arabs and the Holocaust: The Arab-Israeli War of Narratives (2012), The People Want: A Radical Exploration of the Arab Uprising (2022). His most recent books are The New Cold War: The United States, Russia and China, from Kosovo to Ukraine (2023) and the collection of articles Israel’s War on Gaza (2023). His next book, Gaza, A Genocide Foretold, will come out in 2025. He is a member of AntiCapitalist Resistance in Britain.