Syrian defense minister says open to talks with Kurds, but ready to use force

Syria’s defense minister says Damascus is open to talks with Kurdish-led forces on their integration into the national army but stands ready to use force should negotiations fail.

“The door to negotiation with the (Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces) is currently open,” Murhaf Abu Qasra tells reporters. “If we have to use force, we will be ready.”

Last month, an official told AFP that an SDF delegation had met Syria’s interim leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, who heads the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group that spearheaded the rebel offensive that ousted Bashar al-Assad.

Sharaa had told Al Arabiya television that Kurdish-led forces should be integrated into the new national army so that weapons are “in the hands of the state alone.”

The US-backed SDF spearheaded the military campaign that ousted the Islamic State jihadist group from its last territory in Syria in 2019. The group controls much of the oil-producing northeast, where it has enjoyed de facto autonomy for more than a decade.

“They offered us oil, but we don’t want oil, we want the institutions and the borders,” Abu Qasra says.