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Clashes come amid high-level talks between Syrian and Turkish officers on integration of SDF forces into Syria’s military.
Clashes have been reported between the Syrian military and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Aleppo amid high-level talks on tips on how to combine the SDF into Syria’s state establishments.
Syria’s state-run SANA information company reported on Monday that the SDF launched assaults towards Syrian safety drive positions close to the Sheihan and Lairmoun roundabouts in Aleppo.
“The Gaziantep-Aleppo street has been closed from the course of the Lairmoun and Sheihan roundabouts as SDF targets the street,” the information company mentioned.
The Syrian Civil Defence mentioned two of its rescuers have been injured after the car they have been travelling in was fired upon by the SDF.
“The car clearly displayed the Civil Protection insignia,” the rescue company mentioned, including that the 2 wounded rescuers have been taken to hospital.
The violence comes as Turkish International Minister Hakan Fidan visited Syria’s capital Damascus for talks with Syrian officers on the combination of the SDF into the nation’s new military forward of a looming deadline.
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, who got here to energy following the removing of longtime chief Bashar al-Assad in December of final 12 months, signed a deal in March with the SDF to combine the group into the nation’s state establishments.
However the particulars of the combination course of have been left imprecise and the deal’s implementation has stalled.
Reporting from Damascus, Al Jazeera’s Ayman Oghanna mentioned the high-level assembly between the Syrian and Turkish officers was “the catalyst” for Monday’s clashes. “We’ve heard reviews of heavy gunfire and even shelling,” he mentioned.
“Beforehand, Damascus had urged merging the 50,000 SDF fighters into three divisions, with partial Syrian management. The Turks have been actually towards this they usually mentioned they wished to dismantle the SDF’s current command construction,” Oghanna defined.
The US-backed SDF has managed a big swath of territory in northeastern Syria sine 2015.
“The difficulty of integrating SDF into Syrian authorities forces might be probably the most flamable think about Syria in the present day. It’s an enormous hotspot and it actually threatens the nationwide unity of Syria.”
Factors of rivalry
A serious sticking level has been whether or not the SDF would stay as a cohesive unit within the new Syrian military or whether or not it could be dissolved and its members individually absorbed into the brand new army.
Turkiye, which considers the SDF to be a “terrorist” organisation because of its hyperlinks to the Kurdistan Employees’ Social gathering (PKK, has been against the SDF becoming a member of as a single unit.
Kurdish officers have mentioned {that a} preliminary settlement has been reached to permit three divisions affiliated with the SDF to combine as items into the brand new military, however it’s unclear how shut the perimeters are to finalising it.
The unique deadline for implementation of the March deal was the top of the 12 months, and there have been fears of a army confrontation if progress will not be made by then.
Talking alongside Fidan on Monday, Syrian International Minister Asaad al-Shibani mentioned the federal government had not seen “an initiative or a critical will” from the SDF to implement the combination settlement.
“There was systematic procrastination,” al-Shibani mentioned.
He added that Damascus had submitted a proposal to the SDF for transferring ahead with the army merger and acquired a response Sunday, which is at the moment “beneath evaluation”.
