Syrian government and Kurdish officials discuss merging their armed forces

The new Syrian government wants to bring Syria’s breakaway Kurdish militias back under government control, but the details of their recent breakthrough agreement are still being worked out and negotiators will have overcome a decade of civil war.

Government officials meet in the northeastern province of Hassakeh with the commander of the main Kurdish-led group in the country, the Syrian Democratic Forces, which is backed by the US.

The meeting comes a week after Syria’s interim government signed a deal with the Kurdish-led authority that controls the country’s northeast, including a ceasefire and the merging of the SDF into the Syrian army.

The deal should be implemented by the end of the year. It would bring northeast Syria’s borders and lucrative oil fields under the central government’s control.