Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) commander-in-chief Mazloum Abdi, speaks during a press conference in Syria's northeastern city of Hasakeh on Dec. 6, 2024. (AFP)
The integration of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) within Syria’s state institutions was complete, group’s leader Mazloum Abdi said late on Aug. 20, months after the January agreement on the matter was reached.
“I want to say that the phase of integrating military, security, and administrative institutions into national state institutions is complete and finished,” Abdi said at an event in Qamishli in northeastern Syria.
“From now on, we begin a new phase.”
Abdi also said that the militants who had arrived in Syria to join the SDF forces have now left the country.
Abdi’s statement “regarding the completion of the military, security, and administrative integration of the SDF into Syrian state institutions represents an important and positive development.,” said Ahmad al-Hilali, a member of Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa’s team overseeing the integration process and deputy governor of the Kurdish-majority Hasaka province in northeast Syria.
Speaking to the state-run al-Ikhbariya channel, Hilali said the SDF commander’s remarks also amounted to “a clear declaration” that the process had moved from the stage of reaching agreements to their actual implementation within the Syrian state.
Hilali said the remarks would be followed by concrete steps on the ground, including the unification of institutions and administrative structures and the restoration of state institutions’ full authority. He said this would ensure unified decision-making and preserve Syrian sovereignty.
He added that the development would also mark the end of “dual structures and parallel entities,” paving the way for a new Syria based on “one state, one army and one set of institutions.”
The announcement follows months of negotiations between the two sides after the agreement, which called for the full integration of civil and military institutions into the state, a move Washington deemed “historic.”
It had followed clashes between SDF and the new authorities’ forces that saw the SDF lose swathes of territory.
