Peter Ford, former UK ambassador to Syria that the deployment of the Syrian forces and Damascus’s response to the demand by the Kurds in the country proved that who the Kurds can count on in need.

"The one thing that's clear is the determination of the Syrian government to reclaim every last kilometer of Syrian sovereign territory, this is the real story here," Peter Ford, former UK ambassador to Syria, told Radio Sputnik's Loud & Clear on Tuesday.

​"What the Syrian government is doing in Afrin is a lesson, a lesson to the Kurds in who they can count on when the chips are down," Ford noted.

"Reports of the Syrian government bailing out the Kurds is interesting from a US perspective because Washington sees the Kurds as a counterweight to the Syrian government generally," the Council on Foreign Relations' Max Abrahms said via Twitter on Sunday.

Varying reports have suggested the Kurds rejected Damascus' help; however, a YPG source told Sputnik that the Kurds had agreed to allow Syrian fighters to help them protect the Syrian city of Afrin.

"We are urging the Syrian Army to come to protect the Syrian borders from Turkish occupation. Afrin is part of Syria, that's why we have called on the army to stand on guard of the border," a YPG representative told Sputnik.

Reporter’s code: 50101