PHOTO- Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) soldiers, left and right, stand along the road as vehicles carrying a contingent of Syria’s Interior Ministry security forces arrive to implement an agreement with the SDF aimed at stabilizing a ceasefire in al-Hassakeh, eastern Syria, Monday, Feb. 2, 2026. © Baderkhan Ahmad, AP
Forces reporting to Syria’s interior ministry on Monday entered the strategic city of al-Hassakeh in the northeast as part of an agreement with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Under the deal, the security forces were given permission to enter two Kurdish-controlled cities in exchange for integrating SDF and its administration into the central government.
DAMASCUS- A small contingent of security forces with Syria’s interior ministry entered the city of al-Hassakeh on Monday as part of a deal between Damascus and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, which control the city.
The SDF announced the new agreement with the central government on Friday, aiming to stabilise a ceasefire in the country that ended weeks of fighting, in which the Kurdish-led force lost most of the territory it previously held in northeastern Syria. It lays out steps toward integrating the force into the army and police forces, and integrating civilian institutions in SDF-controlled areas into the central government.
Under the deal, government military forces will not enter Kurdish-majority areas, but small contingents of security forces reporting to the interior ministry will enter the cities of al-Hassakeh and Qamishli to secure state-affiliated institutions such as the civil registry, passport offices and the airport, and to restart work at those institutions.
Local Kurdish police forces will continue to patrol both cities and will eventually be integrated into the interior ministry as well.
The entry of government forces into al-Hassakeh went forward as planned without any outbreaks of violence.
Later Monday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned the SDF against any attempts to “sabotage” the agreement reached with the Syrian government.
“With the latest agreements, a new page has now been opened before the Syrian people,” Erdogan said in a televised address. “Whoever attempts to sabotage this, I say clearly and openly, will be crushed under it.”
Turkey is a strong ally of the government in Damascus and regards the SDF as an extension of a Kurdish militant group that has led a decades-long insurgency in Turkey.
(FRANCE 24 with AP)
