UPDATES WITH MORE DETAILS, MINOR REVISIONS IN HEADLINE AND LEDE (CHANGED SYRIA TO SYRIAN GOVERNMENT)
By Mohammad Sio
ISTANBUL (AA) – The Syrian government said Friday that talks with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) group have produced no tangible outcomes, despite repeated statements by the group that dialogue with Damascus is ongoing.
While the SDF leadership continues to signal engagement with the Syrian state, “these discussions have not resulted in concrete results,” a senior Foreign Ministry source told the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), adding that such rhetoric appears aimed at media messaging and easing political pressure rather than moving toward implementation.
Repeated assertions about Syria’s unity conflict with conditions on the ground in the country’s northeast, including border areas, where administrative, security, and military institutions operate outside state authority, entrenching division rather than resolving it, the source added.
The source said: “Current proposals for decentralization go beyond administrative arrangements into political and security decentralization that threatens state unity and entrenches de facto entities.”
The statement also said rhetoric about managing the northeastern region, where the SDF concentrates its forces, overlooks political exclusion, the concentration of decision-making power, and a lack of genuine representation of the area’s social diversity.
The source said the presence of armed formations like the SDF operating outside the Syrian army, with independent leadership and external ties, undermines sovereignty and hinders stability.
The source added that such a group having unilateral control over border crossings and frontiers – and their use as bargaining tools – contradicts principles of national sovereignty.
On natural resources, the source said SDF statements that oil belongs to all Syrians lack credibility as long as the sector is not managed through state institutions and revenues are not deposited into the national budget.
The source said talk of converging viewpoints is “meaningless unless this is translated into clear, formal agreements with defined implementation mechanisms and timelines.”
Efforts to integrate institutions have remained at the level of theoretical statements without concrete steps, raising doubts about the seriousness of the SDF’s commitments to the March 10 agreement.
The agreement included provisions to reopen border crossings, an airport, and oil and gas fields, and to reaffirm Syria’s territorial unity.
- March 10 agreement
On March 10, the Syrian presidency announced the signing of an agreement for the SDF’s integration into state institutions, reaffirming the country's territorial unity and rejecting any attempts at division.
The SDF is dominated by the terrorist group YPG, the Syrian branch of the terrorist PKK.
Syrian authorities say that in the months since March 10, the SDF has not shown any efforts to meet the terms of the agreement.
Officials in neighboring Türkiye have also stressed that the SDF must abide by the deal, warning that any security issues in Syria also affect Türkiye.
The Syrian government has been stepping up security efforts since the fall of the decades-long Assad regime in December 2024.