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Dear Ambassador Barrack,
For more than a decade, Syria has been the epicenter of a conflict that has fractured the Levant, drained the strength of its people, and posed a persistent threat to the stability of America’s closest allies. What began as an internal uprising evolved into a battleground for regional and global rivalries, with the war’s fault lines exploited by state and non-state actors alike. The result has been a shattered nation whose fate remains entangled with foreign agendas, armed proxies, and ideological extremists.
Today, in 2025, we face a moment unlike any in the last thirteen years. The Assad regime’s collapse at the close of 2024, followed by the emergence of a transitional Syrian leadership, has created a rare opening. This leadership—while still consolidating its legitimacy—has signaled a readiness to work with all regional actors, including the United States, in pursuit of national restoration. The developments of recent years—the persistent clashes along the Türkiye-Syria border in 2023, the dangerous spikes in U.S.-Iran tensions in 2024, and the gradual softening of certain Arab capitals toward Damascus—have all converged to make this a decisive crossroads. We either seize this window to bring the war to an end under conditions that serve U.S. strategic interests and protect our allies, or we allow it to close, locking the region into yet another decade of instability.
You, as Special Envoy, are in a position not simply to manage this crisis but to resolve it—permanently. That will require a clear-eyed understanding of what destabilizes Syria today, and the courage to address the most sensitive of those issues directly. At the top of that list is the removal of the PKK’s presence in Syria and the dismantling of its political, military, and administrative infrastructure.
The PKK, through its Syrian offshoot the YPG, has entrenched itself in the country under the guise of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the political framework of the so-called Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES). While the SDF was undeniably effective in the fight against ISIS, its YPG core has never shed its allegiance to the PKK’s separatist and militant ideology. For Türkiye—a NATO ally—this is not a theoretical concern but an existential one. The PKK’s Syrian presence provides safe havens, recruitment pools, and logistical support networks that threaten Turkish security. For Syria’s new leadership, the PKK’s hold over the northeast represents an equally direct challenge to sovereignty, territorial unity, and the reintegration of the state.
The United States must lead on a solution that ends the PKK’s Syrian presence entirely. This means the dissolution of the PYD and the AANES as governing entities, replacing them with locally elected municipal councils operating within a unified Syrian constitutional framework. It means a phased, verifiable integration of Arab-majority SDF units into the Syrian Arab Army, with U.S. and Turkish oversight ensuring they serve as stabilizing forces rather than separatist militias. It means offering Kurdish fighters a path to political reintegration if they renounce armed struggle, submit to counterterrorism vetting, and commit to Syria’s territorial integrity. Those unwilling to comply must be disarmed through a structured DDR (Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration) program under international supervision. This approach would not only answer Türkiye's security demands but also eliminate one of the most potent obstacles to Syria’s unification.
Removing the PKK from Syria will have immediate strategic benefits for U.S. allies. For Türkiye, it would mean the end of cross-border threats and the space to pivot from military intervention to economic cooperation. That cooperation could be deepened through U.S.-brokered agreements granting Türkiye priority access to Syrian reconstruction contracts, joint infrastructure projects, and participation in a new Levant Economic Corridor—a trade network linking the Mediterranean to the Gulf through Syria, Jordan, and potentially Israel, if political conditions allow.
For Israel, the calculus is different but no less important. Israel’s primary security concern in Syria has been the entrenchment of Iranian forces and Hezbollah supply lines. So long as Damascus is vulnerable and fragmented, Iran has opportunities to project power there. But a sovereign Syrian state—independent of both Tehran and the PKK—can be part of a regional security balance that protects Israel without requiring perpetual preemptive strikes that risk escalation. Quiet understandings could be reached, through U.S. mediation, in which Syria commits to halting weapons transfers to Hezbollah and refraining from hosting Iranian military infrastructure. In exchange, Israel would scale back its air operations over Syria, allowing the new government the space to consolidate stability without the constant shadow of external strikes.
Jordan’s stability depends on a secure and functional Syrian border. In 2023, smuggling of drugs, weapons, and contraband from Syria into Jordan reached alarming levels, straining Amman’s security services and fueling domestic unrest. A restored Syrian state capable of policing its own borders would immediately ease this pressure. The United States can bolster Jordan’s role in this process by providing advanced surveillance systems, rapid reaction units, and intelligence-sharing agreements that link Jordanian and Syrian border forces.
For Saudi Arabia, the stakes are both strategic and symbolic. Riyadh has long sought to counter Iranian influence across the Arab world and to reassert its leadership role in Arab affairs. A U.S.-supported Arab Reconstruction Fund for Syria, led by Saudi Arabia and tied to the verifiable withdrawal of all Iranian military assets from Syria, would give Riyadh both the leverage and the prestige it seeks. This fund could be the economic engine of Syria’s recovery, binding it closer to the Arab world and further away from Tehran’s orbit.
The removal of the PKK and the exclusion of Iranian forces are not merely tactical objectives—they are structural prerequisites for ending the cycle of proxy warfare that has destroyed Syria. Every major foreign stakeholder—Türkiye, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Russia, and even the EU—has an interest in a sovereign Syria free from the influence of armed proxies. The United States is uniquely positioned to align these interests into a single diplomatic initiative.
This alignment can be institutionalized through what I propose as the Levant Stability Summit—a high-level conference modeled on the 1991 Madrid Conference, but with a broader mandate. Hosted by the United States with UN mediation, the summit would bring together all key regional and global players: Türkiye, Syria’s transitional government, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, the European Union. The agenda would be threefold: first, to commit all parties to Syria’s territorial integrity and the non-support of separatist militias; second, to negotiate the coordinated withdrawal of all non-Syrian armed forces from its territory; and third, to establish a comprehensive reconstruction and economic integration plan with enforceable benchmarks.
A sovereign, unified Syria is not only a diplomatic victory—it is a humanitarian necessity. The destruction of Aleppo, Raqqa, Homs, and countless smaller towns has left millions displaced, many of them in precarious conditions in Türkiye, Jordan, and Lebanon. The U.S. should lead an international coalition to rebuild Syria’s critical infrastructure—its schools, hospitals, roads, and utilities—not as unconditional aid, but as a strategic investment tied to inclusive governance reforms. Safe and voluntary refugee returns, coordinated with Türkiye and Jordan, must be part of this process, relieving the economic and social strains on those host countries and allowing displaced Syrians to contribute to their homeland’s recovery.
The argument for action is not only moral but strategic. For Türkiye, the elimination of the PKK’s Syrian sanctuary would be a historic security achievement, enabling Ankara to shift its military and economic priorities toward growth and cooperation. For Israel, the removal of Iranian forces and the stabilization of Syria’s northern frontier would significantly reduce the risk of a sudden two-front war involving Lebanon. For Jordan, restored border control would strengthen internal stability and reduce the financial burden of refugee care. For Saudi Arabia, leadership in Syria’s reconstruction would cement its role as the Arab world’s central power broker and strategic counterweight to Iran. And for the United States, leading this transformation would demonstrate that Washington can still deliver decisive results in the Middle East—results that strengthen alliances, contain adversaries, and end one of the most persistent conflicts of our time.
Ambassador Barrack, the opportunity before you is rare, and history will not keep it open indefinitely. Syria can remain an open wound—bled by the PKK, manipulated by Tehran, and destabilized by external actors who thrive on its weakness—or it can be restored as a sovereign state, fully reintegrated into the region, and bound to peace through mutual economic and security interests. The difference will be decided by what the United States chooses to do in the coming months.
Under your leadership, Washington has the chance to do what no other power can: to end all violence in Syria on terms that benefit all American allies, shut down the PKK’s Syrian project, roll back Iranian influence, neutralize Israeli destabilization cycles, and rebuild the Levant as a space of stability rather than a theater of endless war. The alternative is to let this moment slip away and condemn the region to another decade of bloodshed. That is a choice we cannot afford to make.
The time to act is now.
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