SDF dissolution opens Syria’s next security bargain
AK Party spokesman Omer Celik called the SDF’s dissolution into the Syrian army an important threshold for the country’s internal unity. The same day, Vladimir Putin and Ahmed al-Sharaa discussed the August 9 memorandum recasting Russia’s facilities at Khmeimim and Tartous. Together, the developments show Damascus consolidating armed structures while rebuilding separate security relationships with Turkey and Russia.
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Ankara’s unity calculation
AK Party spokesman Omer Celik described the SDF’s dissolution and integration into the Syrian army as a threshold for stronger internal unity. Ankara’s support places the military reorganisation in northern Syria beside Turkey’s domestic process with the PKK, which it regards as linked to the SDF. After the PKK announced in 2025 that it would disarm and disband, Turkey’s parliament passed a law this month providing a legal framework for the process. Turkey still has thousands of troops in Syria and says they will remain until its security concerns are removed.[1]
Russian bases take a new form
A separate negotiation with Russia is shaping Syria’s external security arrangement. Vladimir Putin and Ahmed al-Sharaa discussed the August 9 memorandum reorganising the Khmeimim airbase and the Tartous logistics facility during their telephone call. The agreement announced by Damascus this month followed 18 months of talks and turns the two sites into joint training and capacity-building centres, while returning civilian sections to Syrian control. Moscow is therefore seeking a defined relationship with the new government rather than simply preserving the military footprint it built while supporting Bashar al-Assad.[2]
One centre, separate partnerships
Both developments concern Damascus’s attempt to centralise decisions about the use of force. Ending the SDF as an independent military structure changes the domestic chain of command, while converting Russian facilities into joint centres rewrites the terms of a foreign presence. The reports do not establish a coordinated Turkish-Russian plan; they describe separate processes with different actors. Syria’s language of territorial integrity therefore marks a new negotiating stage, not a finished settlement, as Damascus defines how local forces and foreign partners will relate to central authority.[1], [2]
