Approaching Zero Hour – Can Syria unify & avoid major conflict with the SDF?

As SNA-SDF hostilities spiral, SDF negotiations with Damascus appear to have hit a dead-end.

Among the many considerable challenges facing post-Assad Syria, one that’s becoming increasingly urgent is the need to achieve some form of resolution to the conflicting agendas between the HTS-led transition in Damascus and the SDF-led autonomous project in the northeast. While both groups instinctually agreed on the need for a détente once Assad’s regime began to collapse in early-December 2024, the negotiations that have followed between the two have made very little progress. Syria’s interim Defense Minister is now warning of a new “civil war” if a deal is not soon reached.