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Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan’s recent remarks on Syria deliver a direct and unmistakable message: Türkiye firmly rejects the YPG-dominated SDF and insists on its full integration.
Without naming him, Fidan was actually responding to the latest speech by SDF head Mazloum Abdi at the MER2 conference in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.
Speaking in Duhok, Abdi made several problematic claims, particularly those directed at Türkiye. He asserted that the SDF has never attacked Türkiye and poses no threat to it. This is patently untrue. The SDF has carried out dozens of cross-border attacks, planned and assisted terrorist operations inside Türkiye, and was responsible for more than 200 random car-bomb terror attacks in Turkish-protected areas of northern Syria between 2018 and 2021.
Abdi also described the so-called “peace process in Bakur” as an opportunity for the region. By using the separatist term ‘Bakur’ to refer to parts of Turkish territory, he made his political orientation unmistakable.
Taken together, these statements reveal Abdi’s attempt to reshape the March 10 agreement and the ongoing PKK disarmament process into a quid pro quo: “Accept the PKK’s presence in Syria in exchange for disarmament in Türkiye and Iraq.”
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Fidan’s response rejected this approach outright: “The current structure of the SDF poses a threat not only to Syria’s national unity but also to Türkiye’s national security. The PKK terrorist organisation is already no longer capable of carrying out attacks in Türkiye. Therefore, the issue of laying down arms cannot be limited to Türkiye alone. This is not sufficient. If this is to be used as an argument, Türkiye will never fall for such a ploy. The region will be completely cleared of the PKK, and the organisation—along with its external branches—will be transformed into a fully disarmed and dismantled structure.”
His message was aimed squarely at the PKK and its affiliates: The disarmament process cannot and will not be turned into a negotiated settlement that legitimises the SDF’s autonomous structures. Türkiye rejects any scenario in which the SDF remains an armed or semi-autonomous force.
An SDF-run entity inside Syria is incompatible with Türkiye’s security concerns, with Syria’s territorial integrity, and with the logic of the March 10 agreement. Ankara continues to insist on the full integration of the SDF and its civilian institutions into the Syrian state.
Türkiye’s vision for Syria remains clear and unchanged: “One army, one state, one flag.”
Not an army within an army, a state within a state, or a flag beside another flag.
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