Turkey plans to supply military equipment to the Damascus government in Syria, including drones, armored vehicles, artillery, and air-defense systems, to help President Ahmed al-Sharaa (aka al-Julani) rebuild the country’s army and consolidate control after the fall of Bashar al-Assad.
Although many international media outlets now refer to him as Syria’s president, al-Sharaa seized control of the government under force of arms last December. He has not been elected and remains unaccepted by a large portion of Syria’s population. A former leader of an extremist terrorist organization that pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda, al-Sharaa’s government also has ties to ISIS.
The new weapons from Turkey weapons are expected to be deployed primarily in northern Syria to avoid confrontation with Israel.
Recently, Israeli forces intervened to defend the Druze minority after a massacre committed by units aligned with the Damascus government, which has raised fears of potential genocide under the country’s current extremist-aligned leadership. Consequently, Turkey plans to position the new weapons closer to its own border, where they will likely be used against the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
The SDF, supported by the United States, defends Rojava, formally the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), a multiethnic, semi-autonomous region home to Kurds, Christians, Arabs, and other minorities, making it a key target in Turkey’s ongoing campaign against Kurdish autonomy in Syria.
Ankara and Damascus are negotiating an expanded security pact that would allow Turkish forces to target Kurdish militants up to 30 kilometers inside Syria, beyond the current 5-kilometer limit. This would put Turkish troops well within the area defended by SDF. Turkey wants to curb the power of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), dominated by the Kurdish YPG, which Ankara links to the PKK insurgency in Turkey.
Since the fall of Bashar al-Assad in late 2024, Syria’s Kurds have remained locked in conflict with Damascus, Turkey and its allied militias. The Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) has seized territory along the Syrian side of the border, displacing thousands who now live in internally displaced persons (IDP) camps, just miles from their homes but unable to return to the occupied areas.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan expects al-Sharaa to suppress Kurdish autonomy and continue to block the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) from accessing oil and gas revenues. At the same time, Ankara continues to restrict water flow into Rojava, increasing pressure on the Kurdish-led administration in northern Syria.
Turkish military forces, along with the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA), continue to carry out air and ground assaults on Kurdish-controlled territory. Beyond killing and displacing civilians, Turkish airstrikes have destroyed power stations and critical infrastructure, depriving the residents of Rojava of electricity and other essential services. Human rights organizations have condemned attacks on civilians and ambulances as potential war crimes.
Apart from defending against attacks from both Damascus and Ankara and their proxy forces, the SDF must also continue guarding Al-Hol, a large refugee camp in northeastern Syria near the Iraqi border that primarily holds the wives and children of ISIS fighters. The camp’s inhabitants remain radicalized, and releasing them inside Syria would endanger civilians, while no foreign country is willing to repatriate them. Consequently, the SDF’s resources are stretched thin, and every new military engagement forces it to divert manpower, creating openings for ISIS sleeper cells to launch fresh attacks.
In an interview with the SDF, Lana Hussain, a member of the YPJ, explained how ISIS exploits the other conflicts facing the SDF. She described how, earlier this year, while the SDF was fighting the Syrian National Army at the Tishrin Dam, “ISIS sleeper cells were active again. And the same with Turkey also, whenever there is a time, whenever the SDF are busy with something else, ISIS will be free to be active again.”
Despite facing multiple threats supported by the Damascus government, al-Sharaa is currently negotiating with the SDF, urging them to lay down their weapons. In an interview with the People’s Protection Units (YPG) Media Center of the SDF, Seyamend Ali explained to me why the SDF refuses to disarm: “First, we are still in a dangerous situation because ISIS is still fighting us. The second reason is that we still don’t trust the new government.”
When SDF representatives raise questions about guarantees for civil and human rights, Damascus’s response is always the same, Seyamend Ali said: “They say, you will first lay down your weapon, and then we will talk about you. We will talk about all these other things, training, the universities, the refugees, the constitution.”
Lana Hussain, one of the many proud female soldiers of the YPJ who has seen combat numerous times, expressed similar concerns about women’s rights. She noted that al-Sharaa’s government is composed of hardline Islamists who will likely strip women of their freedoms.
“When we negotiate with the new government, there are only two things in the constitution for women. One of them is she can study, and the other one is she can work,” she said. Hussain added that such basic rights should be taken for granted, not presented as concessions: “This is not like something you give extra for women.”
She worries that the new government will relegate women to domestic roles, saying, “Maybe they will tell women that they should do housework and take care of children, and that the family will be registered by the name of the man, and this sort of thing.”
When these issues are raised during negotiations, she said, “The new government always says, okay, we will solve these things, and the last thing, after we finish, we will talk about women.”
With U.S. troops still stationed in the northeast, the Kurds fear that President Trump could withdraw them, leaving the region vulnerable to a Turkish invasion and a possible ISIS resurgence.
Although the SDF and Damascus signed a deal in March 2025 to integrate SDF fighters into the national army, little progress has been made. Several SDF officials told me they will not disarm, explaining that doing so would leave them defenseless against the Damascus government forces, the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA), and ISIS, which continues to target Kurds and Christians.
The ongoing talks between Damascus and Ankara underscore both Turkey’s growing influence in post-Assad Syria and its determination to suppress Kurdish self-rule along the border. At the same time, the absence of international outrage or intervention reveals how the world, weary of war, is selectively choosing which causes to care about. For now, the United States remains the SDF’s primary external ally, but that friendship has limits, as seen in 2019, when the U.S. announced a troop pull-out and Turkey launched an offensive into Kurdish-held territory.
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