Syrian army says it will renew Aleppo attacks after Kurds reject ceasefire terms

Original article by William Christou

Syria’s army says it will renew attacks against a Kurdish-majority district of Aleppo where clashes have raged this week, after Kurdish groups rejected Damascus’s ceasefire terms that demanded their fighters withdraw from the city.

The army said it would target military sites used by Kurdish fighters in the Sheikh Maqsoud district, announcing the opening of a humanitarian corridor from 4pm (1300 GMT) to 6pm on Friday for civilians to leave.

The government and Kurdish forces have traded blame over who started the fighting on Tuesday, which came as they struggled to implement a deal reached last March to merge the Kurds’ administration and military into Syria’s new government.

Tens of thousands of people have fled the fighting, which was the most intense in the country for more than six months and killed at least 21 people.

Earlier on Friday, Syria’s government had announced a ceasefire that came into effect at 3am local time. Under the terms of the ceasefire, Kurdish militants were to leave the three contested neighbourhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud, Ashrafieh and Bani Zaid, where clashes were happening. They would be provided safe passage to the north-east of the country, which is controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), and be allowed to take light arms with them.

In a statement, Kurdish councils that run the Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh districts of Aleppo said calls to leave were “a call to surrender” and that Kurdish forces would “defend their neighbourhoods”, accusing government forces of intense shelling.

A resident of Aleppo said the fighting appeared to cease overnight and footage from within the contested neighbourhoods showed that gunfire, which was constant over the last few days, had stopped. Members of the government security forces posted videos showing clearing operations being conducted in some of the neighbourhoods, as well as videos of underground tunnels being inspected that the SDF have used to transport fighters and weapons beneath Aleppo.

Relations between the Syrian government and the SDF, which holds about a third of Syria’s territory, have worsened in recent months. The two sides signed a deal for the SDF to be integrated into Syria’s new army by the end of last year, but negotiations to implement the agreement ground to a halt.

The government in Damascus has styled the SDF as a separatist entity undermining the unity of the Syrian state, while the SDF has described the new government as “jihadists” and expressed fears about the safety of ethnic and religious minorities under its rule.

Aleppo, where the SDF controlled a pocket of Kurdish-majority neighbourhoods otherwise surrounded by the Syrian government, had been a flashpoint for months. The latest round of fighting has deepened divisions between the two sides, with the SDF leader, Mazloum Abdi, saying that the last few days of conflict had undermined “the chances of reaching understandings”.

The Syrian government also said in a statement that government control needed to be extended over the entirety of Syria, and the monopoly of violence remain with the state, to “preserve the unity of Syria”.

Both sides have accused the other of committing war crimes over the past three days, with the SDF saying Damascus was guilty of ethnic cleansing and the crime of forced displacement by ordering civilians to leave their homes ahead of shelling. The government in Damascus claimed the SDF was using civilians as human shields and of sniping at people who attempted to leave the neighbourhoods via the humanitarian passages set up by the government.

The SDF is backed by the US, which for years equipped and armed the Kurdish force in its fight against Islamic State in Syria. The US has tried to mediate a merger between the SDF and the new government in Damascus for months, but little has changed on the ground since the fall of President Bashar al-Assad last year.

Turkey, one of Damascus’s key backers, views the SDF as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK), a Kurdish separatist group with which it has fought a gruelling 40-year insurgency. Turkey has said it is ready to assist the Syrian government if it requests it.

“The SDF’s insistence on protecting what it has at all costs is the biggest obstacle to achieving peace and stability in Syria,” the Turkish foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, said in a press conference on Thursday.

The status of the SDF and the swathes of the country it holds remains a sticking point with Damascus, which is seeking to fully consolidate its control over Syria.

Agence France-Presse and Reuters contributed to this report