ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A senior US senator on Monday raised doubts and concerns about the newly-announced ceasefire agreement between the Syrian transitional government and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), warning that Washington has not yet received a detailed briefing on the deal.
Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator and a longtime supporter of the SDF, said neither he nor any other senator he knows has been provided with a full analysis of the agreement announced on Sunday, after days of heavy clashes between SDF forces and Damascus.
In a posts on X, Graham said he has "not received nor do I know any Senator that has received a detailed analysis of the agreement," hoping that the deal is "full of promise and transformative, but I have concerns and questions."
The 14-point agreement - announced late Sunday - mandates the withdrawal of SDF forces from key provinces such as Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor and the integration of SDF fighters, on an "individual" basis and after security vetting, into Syria’s ministries of defense and interior. It also transfers control of oil and gas fields, border crossings, and major prisons holding Islamic State (ISIS) suspects to the central government in Damascus.
Before the deal was reached, government forces made rapid advances, seizing several locations including dams, oil fields, and towns such as Tabqa and parts of Deir ez-Zor following heavy clashes with the SDF.
Graham stressed the strategic importance of the US partnership with the SDF.
"One of America’s primary national security interests with respect to Syria has been our partnership with the SDF, who led the effort to defeat ISIS and to counter an ISIS comeback" he said.
The Kurdish-led SDF serves as the de facto military force in the region. Until Syria joined the US-led Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS in November, the SDF had been the coalition’s sole on-the-ground partner, playing a key role in ISIS’s territorial defeat in Syria in 2019.