Syrian government and Kurds allegedly cooperating in secret

RAQQA, Syria (Kurdistan 24) – The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighting the Islamic State (IS) on Tuesday denied reports they had handed over areas under their control southeast of Raqqa to the Syrian government.

On Saturday, the Qatar-based news agency Almodon claimed an agreement had been reached between the SDF, of which the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) form a major component, and the Syrian army and their allied militias.

“The two parties signed the agreement in a secret meeting in the town of Al-Akirshi (east of Raqqa), which was recently still under QSD control,” the report read, using the Arabic acronym for the SDF. 

“Ten people attended the meeting, three of whom represent the Syrian regime forces, while the rest represented Arab and Kurdish leaders within SDF ranks.”

According to the agreement, the Syrian government troops and their allies would be allowed to enter the town of Al-Akirishi. The move would bring government troops closer to Deir al-Zor province, another IS stronghold.

On Tuesday, the SDF media center denied any concessions made to the government forces and published photos showing SDF fighters in the town of Al-Akirishi.

“Our fighters today [July 25] in Al-AKirshi, where one of the most important Daesh camps called 'the Osama Bin Laden Camp' once existed,” Mustefa Bali, the director of SDF media center wrote as a caption in an online statement.

Additionally, The Independent newspaper this week in an article by Robert Fisk alleged that the Russians, the Syrian army, and the US-backed Kurdish YPG forces set up a secret coordination center in the eastern Syrian desert.

Fisk said the center was established to prevent mishaps between the Russian-backed and American-supported forces which are now facing each other across the Euphrates River.

“I sat on the floor of an ill-painted villa with a Russian air force colonel in camouflage uniform, a young officer of the Kurdish militia – with a YPG (Kurdish People’s Militia) patch on his sleeve – and a group of Syrian officers and local Syrian tribal militiamen,” he said.

Several meetings have already reportedly been held between Syrian government officials and military commanders, and their Syrian Kurdish counterparts in the more recent years of the country’s ongoing civil war.

Another deal between the Syrian army and the SDF was disclosed in an exclusive interview with Kurdistan24 a few months ago, where areas in Syria's northwest, between Manbij and al-Bab which had been liberated by the Kurdish-led forces, were handed over to the Syrian army.

Editing by G.H. Renaud