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The integration of the PKK/YPG-dominated SDF into Syria's state institutions is now complete, Mazloum Abdi, who heads the SDF, said late Thursday.
"I want to say that the phase of integrating military, security and administrative institutions into national state institutions is complete and finished," Abdi said at an event in Qamishli in northeastern Syria.
"From now on, we begin a new phase," he added, saying, "Our struggle will continue to cement our people's rights in the constitution."
Abdi said the process of integrating the SDF's military, security and administrative institutions into Syrian state structures had "ended and has been fully completed."
Abdi did not detail how the SDF and Kurdish security forces were specifically integrated into the ranks of the Syrian state following months of wrangling between the two sides.
Several brigades have since been formed for SDF members who joined the Syrian army, with former senior figures from the group leading them. Damascus has also appointed a former SDF official as deputy defense minister for the eastern region.
Abdi also said SDF members who had traveled to northeastern Syria from Iraq, Iran and Türkiye have now left the country.
"On our call, our brothers from the other parts of Kurdistan came to help us. Thousands of boys and girls of Kurds stood alongside the SDF and protected this region," he said, thanking them and announcing that "the forces who helped us have now withdrawn from this region following a call and plan from us."
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The announcement follows a Jan. 29 agreement between the SDF and Damascus to integrate the civilian, security and military institutions of the SDF-occupied areas into Syrian state structures, following weeks of clashes.
The agreement, signed by Abdi and Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa, followed clashes between SDF and the Syrian forces that saw the former lose swathes of territory they had held in the oil-rich north and northeast.
Amid that violence, Sharaa signed a decree on Jan. 16 enshrining the Kurds' national rights and recognizing Kurdish as a national language.
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