Syria’s interim government has slammed the brakes on planned Paris talks with the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), accusing them of wrecking the peace process before it even got moving. The reason? A high-profile gathering in Hasakah that Damascus says was more about separatism than unity.
According to the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency, Friday’s event—organized by the SDF and featuring Druze and Alawite religious leaders—was “a blow” to reconciliation and a flat-out breach of the March 10 agreement between Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa and SDF commander Mazloum Abdi. That deal was supposed to fold all civil and military bodies in northeastern Syria into the state’s system, not fracture them.
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Officials in Damascus didn’t hold back, branding the conference a stage for “separatist figures involved in hostile acts” and accusing it of courting foreign meddling and paving the way for sanctions.
The Hasakah meeting, grandly titled “Unity of Position for the Components of Northeastern Syria,” wrapped up with calls for a new democratic constitution and a decentralized system celebrating Syria’s cultural and religious diversity. Damascus, unimpressed, dismissed it as a “fragile alliance” of factions still bitter over the “Syrian people’s victory” against the previous regime.
The government also accused the SDF of hiding “systematic demographic change policies” against Syrian Arabs under lofty political slogans. Officials say the real priority should be “serious engagement” with the March 10 accord—not staging separate political theater.
Just two weeks ago, both sides had promised to meet in Paris “as soon as possible.” Now, that date looks very far away.