Rapid unravelling of SDF removes 'main irritant' in US-Turkey ties

Israel stood down when President Ahmed al-Sharaa's forces took down SDF in sigh of relief for Turkey, experts say

20.01.2026

By Sean Mathews

Source:https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/rapid-unravelling-sdf-removes-main-irritant-us-turkey-ties

The Trump administration’s rapid dismantling of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on the back of President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s military offensive removes the central irritant in the US’s relationship with Nato-ally Turkey, experts say.

“The rise of Rojava really poisoned Turkey’s relationship with the US,” Gonul Tol, director of the Turkey programme at the Middle East Institute, told Middle East Eye.

“Now, Rojava is unravelling with Washington’s blessing. This not only removes a major irritant in US-Turkey relations. It helps Erdogan’s efforts to consolidate power.”

Rojava is the name Kurds use to describe the vast swath of northeastern Syria that the SDF controlled as a semi-autonomous state until this week.

The bid for US-backed Kurdish autonomy, which started during the war on the Islamic State (IS) militant group, has collapsed in spectacular fashion in less than a month as Arab forces loyal to Syria’s central government went on the offensive against the Kurdish-led SDF.

The fighting started in the Kurdish-majority areas of Aleppo in early January. After evicting the SDF from there, Sharaa’s Arab forces swept east across Syria, bringing vast territories under the control of Damascus for the first time in more than a decade, including the provinces of oil-rich Deir Ezzor and Raqqa, whose capital was the site of a successful key SDF battle against IS.

How US-SDF ties unravelled

The US’s support for the SDF has been the major sore point in Washington and Ankara’s ties since the former decided to partner with Kurdish fighters in 2015 against IS.

Ankara views the SDF as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has waged a decades-long war for independence against Turkey and is also considered a terrorist organisation by the US and the European Union. Turkey is now in peace talks with the PKK.

The SDF includes Arab tribes and a scattering of Assyrian and Syriac Christian fighters, but the vast bulk of its forces come from the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or YPG, the Syrian affiliate of the PKK.

Arabs and other groups have long complained of political repression by the Kurds in SDF territory, and major Arab tribes switched allegiances as Sharaa’s forces moved east.

For more than a decade, Washington refused to cut ties with the SDF, which it counted on, until Tuesday, to guard IS prisoners and their families. The so-called "caliphate" was territorially defeated in 2019. That’s when questions began about the US’s rationale for continued support for the SDF.

When former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was in power, the US’s ties to the SDF were seen as a bargaining chip.

The US has roughly 900 troops stationed in northeastern Syria, and defenders of that mission said supporting the SDF’s autonomy deprived Assad and his Iranian allies of territory.

Sharaa’s toppling of Assad in December 2024 made that argument moot. His victory coincided with President Donald Trump’s return to the White House. Trump is a noted sceptic of US intervention in Syria. During his first administration, he tried to remove US troops from Syria but faced pushback from US national security officials.

'Turkey's vital security concerns'

From the beginning of his second term, Trump alluded to Syria being within the sphere of Turkish influence.

He famously said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan did “an unfriendly takeover” of the country, alluding to Ankara’s ties with Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, Sharaa’s old militant group.

Trump’s decision to appoint his billionaire friend Tom Barrack as envoy to Syria and ambassador to Turkey marked a new era in relations between the Nato allies.

Barrack, who has a fondness for peak lapel suits and waxing on about Ottoman history, has sought to align Ankara and Washington across the region. For the SDF, that means it could no longer count on the US to intervene to stop attacks from Turkey or Damascus.

Robert Ford, the last US ambassador to Syria, previously told MEE that the Trump administration was more attuned to Turkey’s security concerns than the SDF’s appeals.

“The Trump administration understands the Turks have a vital national security interest in Syria. He respects that in a way others in Washington haven’t,” he said.

On Tuesday, Barrack said that the US’s security partnership with the SDF had “largely expired”. He threw the full weight of the administration behind a ceasefire that analysts say rips up any vestiges of SDF autonomy.

In a major concession from just a few weeks ago, the deal forces SDF fighters to integrate into the Syrian army as individuals, not Kurdish divisions.

One consolidation is that Syrian forces will not enter Kurdish majority towns and cities that the SDF still controls: Qamishli and Hasaka. But the agreement fully rejects calls for semi-autonomy or a “federal system” of governance that some in Washington have supported.

'Stars aligned'

Omer Ozkizilcik, a non-resident fellow for the Syria Project at The Atlantic Council, told Middle East Eye that by dismantling the SDF, the US had “almost, or totally resolved” the “major point of contention" in the Nato allies' relationship. He said this could have repercussions for Gaza and Ukraine, two conflicts where Trump is seeking Turkish buy-in.

“All stars appear aligned,” Ozkizilcik said. "This will have ramifications across the Middle East and potentially beyond. The US and Turkey are aligned.”

Trump and Erdogan are close. The US leader has credited Erdogan and Saudi Arabia’s crown prince with convincing him to lift sanctions on Syria and bring Sharaa into the US orbit. However, some experts say that until the last moments, Turkey could not count on Trump to back Damascus in full against the SDF.

US Senator Lindsey Graham, a key Trump ally, railed against Sharaa as his forces attacked the SDF. He threatened to call for sanctions to be reinstated on Damascus.

“If Syrian government forces continue to advance in the north toward Raqqa, I will push for reimposing Caesar Act sanctions on steroids,” he wrote on X, referring to punitive sanctions that Congress repealed last month.

“If you want a conflict with the US Senate and to do permanent damage to the US-Syria relationship - keep going,” he said.

Graham’s outburst came amid a visit to Israel. The US has been trying to contain tensions between its two allies in Syria. It lobbied both last year to open a deconfliction line, MEE was the first to reveal.

Israel took advantage of Assad’s downfall to occupy a United Nations buffer zone in southern Syria and launched powerful air strikes that reached the capital, Damascus, over the summer.

Israel occupied Syria’s Mount Hermon, the highest peak in the region. It has also sought to portray itself as a defender of Syria’s Druze minority by backing Druze leader Sheikh Hikmat Salman al-Hajri with arms, experts say.

Tol, at the Middle East Institute, said that Israel had gone to “great lengths to signal it could support minorities” in Syria, including the Kurds, against Damascus.

“A question for Turkey had always been, ‘if there is a Damascus offensive against the Kurds, will Israel do what it did in Suwayda?'” she said, referring to Syria’s Druze region.

MEE revealed that Barrack actually lashed out at the SDF leadership last week in a meeting in Erbil, Iraq, for trying to solicit Israeli intervention.

“In the end, Israel did not lift a finger. It’s a big sigh of relief for Ankara.”