Türkiye's intelligence chief and Syria's foreign minister discuss SDF integration

MIT head İbrahim Kalın met Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al-Shaibani in Ankara on 8 October to discuss folding former SDF fighters into Syria's state institutions, a process Damascus declared complete in August. Ankara views the Kurdish-led SDF as the Syrian branch of the PKK, so its dissolution into the national army is central to Turkish security; the two sides also discussed Israeli strikes in southern Syria and how lifting US sanctions could help rebuild Syria's defences.

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