QAMISHLI: Syria’s foreign minister and a senior official in the country’s Kurdish administration have met in Damascus, sources from both sides told AFP on Tuesday, days after the government boycotted talks in France.
Damascus had said it would not participate in the Paris talks after the Kurds hosted a meeting last week involving Syria’s Druze and Alawite minority communities, which have been subjected to sectarian violence in recent months.
The event called for a decentralized state — a move repeatedly rejected by Syria’s new authorities — and was effectively the first meeting to bring together representatives of several communities opposed to the approach and vision of governance of Syria’s new authorities.
Elham Ahmad, a senior official in the Kurdish administration in Syria’s northeast, met Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Al-Shaibani “on Monday evening upon the request of the Damascus government,” a Kurdish official told AFP, requesting anonymity.
A Syrian government source, also requesting anonymity, confirmed to AFP that the Damascus meeting took place, without providing further details.
The Kurds and Damascus have been holding talks on the implementation of a March 10 deal between Mazloum Abdi, head of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), and President Ahmed Al-Sharaa on integrating the Kurds’ semi-autonomous civil and military institutions into the state.
Implementation has been held up by differences between the two parties.
Monday’s talks sought to affirm “the continuation of the negotiating process via intra-Syrian committees under international supervision,” the Kurdish official said, adding that the sides agreed “there was no place for a military option.”
“Discussions focused on finding an appropriate formula for decentralization, without specifying a timeframe,” the Kurdish official added.
Late last month, Syria, France and the United States said they agreed to convene talks in Paris “as soon as possible” on implementing the March 10 agreement.
Abdi said in a televised interview in July that the Paris meeting was set to discuss the mechanism for integrating his forces, which he said numbered around 100,000 personnel, into the country’s defense ministry.
Several rounds of talks have been held but the process has largely stalled, with Kurdish officials criticizing a constitutional declaration announced by the new authorities, saying it failed to reflect Syria’s diversity.
Syria, Kurdish officials meet after Paris talks canned
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Syria, Kurdish officials meet after Paris talks canned
- Damascus had said it would not participate in the Paris talks after the Kurds hosted a meeting last week involving Syria’s Druze and Alawite minority communities
- The Kurds and Damascus have been holding talks on the implementation of a March 10 deal to integrate the Kurds’ semi-autonomous civil and military institutions
Israeli military says it struck Hezbollah sites in southern Lebanon
- Lebanon’s state news agency, NNA, reported that Israeli warplanes carried out a series of airstrikes targeting several places in the south
BEIRUT: The Israeli military said on Tuesday that it struck infrastructure belonging to Hezbollah in several areas in southern Lebanon, including what it described as a training compound used by the armed group’s Radwan forces.
Military structures and a launch site belonging to Hezbollah were also hit in the attacks, the military added in a statement.
The strikes come less than a week after Israel and Lebanon both sent civilian envoys to a military committee monitoring their ceasefire, a step toward a months-old US demand that the two countries broaden talks in line with President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace agenda.
Israel and Lebanon agreed to a US-brokered ceasefire in 2024 that ended more than a year of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. Since then, they have traded accusations over violations.
Lebanon’s state news agency, NNA, reported that Israeli warplanes carried out a series of airstrikes targeting several places in the south.
