According to KurdPress, the National newspaper wrote that the full integration of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the military, security and administrative structures under the control of the Kurds into the institutions of the Syrian government is a turning point in the process of rebuilding the authority of the central government after years of civil war; but according to experts, this development does not mean the end of the Kurdish issue in Syria.The Kurds’ most important demands, including guaranteeing political, cultural and linguistic rights and determining a level of autonomy, have not yet been enshrined in the Syrian constitution, and this issue could keep relations between Damascus and Kurdish political forces tense in the next phase.

On Thursday, Mazloum Abdi, the leader of the Syrian Kurds, announced in Qamishlo that the process of integrating Kurdish-controlled military, security and administrative institutions into Syrian government structures had been fully completed. He described the development as the beginning of a new phase, one in which tens of thousands of SDF forces will become employees of Syrian ministries and government institutions.

The development is based on an agreement signed in January between Damascus and the Syrian Democratic Forces.The agreement was brokered by the United States and France and supported by Turkey. Its main goal was to end the conflict between Kurdish forces and the new Syrian government and chart a path for the integration of northeastern Syrian structures into central government institutions. Within this framework, the issue of the linguistic and cultural rights of the Kurds, as well as their political participation, was also addressed.

Damascus had previously taken steps to reduce tensions with the Syrian Kurdish community. In January, Syrian President Ahmed al-Shara issued a decree recognizing Nowruz as a national holiday and allowing Kurdish language instruction in public and private schools in Kurdish-populated areas. Syrian citizenship was also recognized for Kurds who were previously stateless.

However, according to experts, the main issue now is not the implementation of integration, but determining the place of Kurdish rights in Syria’s future political structure.Bennett Scheller, head of the Middle East and North Africa department at the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Berlin, believes that the integration of the SDF is an important achievement in Damascus’s efforts to consolidate state authority after years of war, but for many Kurds it is a difficult setback, as hopes for broad autonomy are increasingly limited to the local and municipal levels.

The end of the SDF’s independent existence cannot therefore be seen as the end of the political demands of the Syrian Kurds. In fact, the new equation has shifted the Kurdish issue from the military to the legal and political arena. During the period when the SDF was one of the most important military actors in northeastern Syria, the Kurds were able to establish independent military, security and administrative structures by controlling a significant part of this region.Now, with the end of these structures, their most important tool of military pressure has disappeared, and the future of the rights and powers of the Kurds is more dependent than ever on the constitution and political arrangements in Damascus.

Despite announcing the end of the integration process, Mazloum Abdi has also emphasized that the struggle to consolidate the rights of the Kurdish people in the Syrian constitution will continue. This position shows that from the perspective of the Kurdish leadership, the agreement with Damascus is not an end point, but a new stage of political negotiations to consolidate the achievements of previous years.

One of the most complex issues at this stage is the status of the Kurdish women's forces. The women's units in the structure of the Syrian Kurdish forces had become one of the most prominent military symbols of these forces during the years of the war with ISIS, but the process of their integration into the structures of the Syrian government has faced serious obstacles.According to Scheller, not only has the integration of these units not been accepted as an independent structure, but the transitional government has apparently not even agreed to the individual integration of these forces.

This issue could become a point of friction between Damascus and the Kurdish political forces, because the military integration of the SDF can only lead to a lasting agreement if the members of these forces are confident about their professional, legal and security futures. Removing or excluding some of the female forces from the integration process could reinforce the perception among the Kurds that the existing agreement means the gradual dissolution of their self-governing structures, rather than a mutual compromise.

In previous years, the structure of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, relying on US support, was able to administer a large part of the northeast of the country.The SDF had also become America’s most important ground ally in Syria since the years of the war against ISIS. However, after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December 2024 and the formation of a new political structure in Damascus, regional and international conditions changed, and American support for the continuation of independent Kurdish structures decreased. Now, with the completion of the SDF integration, one of the most important chapters in the political history of the Syrian Kurds in the post-civil war period has come to an end. But the final outcome of this development is still unclear. If Damascus can guarantee the cultural, linguistic, and political rights of the Kurds in the future constitution and create specific mechanisms for their participation in the country’s political structure, the SDF integration could become the starting point of a lasting agreement between the central government and the Kurds.On the other hand, if the rights that have been recognized so far remain merely in the form of presidential decrees and are not enshrined in the constitution, there is still a possibility of a return of mistrust between the two sides. In such a situation, the end of the SDF’s military existence would not necessarily mean the end of the Kurdish issue; rather, it could transform the issue from a military conflict into a political and constitutional challenge for the new Syrian government.

The real significance of the recent development, therefore, lies not simply in the dissolution or integration of the Syrian Democratic Forces, but in the phase that will begin thereafter. Damascus now gains control of the military, security, and administrative institutions of the northeast, but in turn must clarify what place the Kurds will have in the new Syria.The fate of this relationship depends above all on whether Kurdish rights will transcend the level of temporary political privileges and become a permanent part of the country's legal and constitutional structure.