Rubio conditions meeting with Shaibani on SDF Commander’s presence in Munich
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – Well-informed diplomatic sources revealed to al-Monitor that the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio insisted that Commander-in-Chief of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Mazloum Abdi, be present during his Feb. 13 meeting with Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.
Rubio informed al-Shaibani that unless the Kurdish military leader was included in the Syrian delegation, the meeting would not take place at all, according to sources with direct knowledge of the deliberations preceding the meeting. Syria’s interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, authorized his top diplomat to comply with the US demand.
Abdi, flanked by Ilham Ahmed, co-chair of the Autonomous Administration’s Department of External Relations, ultimately sat to al-Shibani’s right and almost directly across from Rubio.
Tom Barrack, the US envoy for Syria, shared a photo from the meeting on social media platform X. “A picture is worth a thousand words. A new beginning,” he wrote.
The meeting was celebrated by Kurds regionally and internationally as a significant diplomatic achievement.
Congressional Pressure Mounts on Damascus
The US insistence on Abdi’s participation came amid growing discontent in Washington over Damascus’s handling of ethnic and religious minorities. Violence last year resulted in over 2,000 casualties among Alawite and Druze communities. Despite this, Congress had recently voted to ease crippling Caesar Act sanctions to allow al-Sharaa an opportunity to rebuild the country.
However, the Syrian army’s assault in January against areas held by the SDF, the Pentagon’s key partner in the fight against ISIS, triggered renewed alarm in Washington.
“After Syrian security forces were already complicit in crimes against Alawite and Druze communities, the emergence of videos showing those forces committing Islamic State-style atrocities, beheading Kurdish fighters, including women, and executing Kurdish families set off alarms on Capitol Hill,” Nadine Maenza, former member of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, told al-Monitor. The videos have not been independently verified.
The violence began on Jan. 6 in two majority-Kurdish neighborhoods in Aleppo city. The clashes resulted in the SDF losing over 80% of the territory it previously controlled, particularly oil-rich areas of Deir ez-Zor province. Syrian government forces ignored a US-brokered truce on Jan. 9 and advanced eastward toward Kurdish-majority areas, breaching ceasefire lines along the Euphrates River.
Fears intensified regarding the security of detention facilities in the region. “There was also a parallel concern that the ISIS prisons and al-Hawl Camp, holding ISIS family members, could be deliberately opened, releasing hardened fighters and radicalized networks back into the region,” Maenza noted.
During the clashes, alleged ISIS fighters broke out from detention facilities while thousands of others fled al-Hawl Camp and remain at large, according to local officials.
US Intervention Halts Offensive
With US Central Command appearing unable or unwilling to intervene, several US senators and representatives took action. Senator Lindsey Graham led efforts, declaring on X that he would do “everything in my power to revive the Caesar Act sanctions, making them even more bone-crushing.”
On Jan. 29, Graham and Senator Richard Blumenthal introduced the “Save the Kurds Act,” which would impose punitive economic measures on Damascus. A day earlier, Graham was present when President Donald Trump called al-Sharaa for the second time in a week, urging the Syrian leader to offer the SDF more favorable terms than those in a previous agreement brokered by US envoy Barrack on Jan. 18.
That earlier accord, backed by Turkey, had stipulated extensive concessions by the Kurdish administration to Damascus.
A new agreement announced on Jan. 30 allows the SDF to retain four military brigades rather than being fully integrated into the national army. Under the terms, Syrian government forces will not enter Kurdish-majority towns and villages. The agreement does not address autonomy, a key Kurdish demand.
Sinam Mohammed, representative of the Autonomous Administration in Washington, said Kurdish representatives worked actively with US lawmakers during the crisis. “When lawmakers understood that instability in northeast Syria could undermine counterterrorism gains and create wider regional repercussions, attention naturally intensified,” she told North Press.
Continued Congressional Scrutiny
Pressure on Damascus continues. On Feb. 10, the House Foreign Relations Committee held a special hearing on Syria chaired by Rep. Brian Mast. In his opening remarks, Mast warned that al-Sharaa “does not have a blank check” from the United States.
“The United States is not satisfied with the progress that he has made yet and views many of his actions as steps backward,” Mast said. “Recent actions against Druze, Kurds and Alawites are all steps in the wrong direction.”
Maenza, who testified at the hearing, noted unusual bipartisan unity. “The most striking takeaway was the level of unity across party lines,” she said.
SDF Commander Affirms Commitment to Kurdish Regions
In an interview with PBS aired on Feb. 23, Kobane addressed the possibility of the agreement with Damascus collapsing. Asked whether the SDF would consider launching an insurgency against the government, Kobane responded through an interpreter: “I don’t want or wish for something like this to happen, but if the deal collapses, we will persist in our fight until the very end. It is absolutely impossible for us to give up on the Kurdish regions.”
The remarks come as US forces continue to withdraw from some bases in northeast Syria, with some personnel redeploying to the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.