In the gilded rooms of Paris this week, Syrian officials reopened a channel with their Israeli counterparts. They are trying to revive a 1974 agreement that once used a UN buffer zone to keep a fragile peace between the two neighbours.
This dialogue focuses on getting Israeli forces to pull back from territory they took during the chaos of last December. It is a massive task for an administration that needs to look like a unified state to the world while dealing with a messy reality on the ground.
On Monday, that reality turned deadly when fighting broke out in Aleppo between government troops and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), leaving six civilians and one soldier dead.
This double-sided crisis forces the new leadership to perform a difficult balancing act, trying to win over foreign powers while struggling to keep order at home.
Syria’s neighbours provide a warning: any government that tries to choose between its global image and its internal peace usually ends up losing both.
The Paris Table and Southern Strikes
The Syrian delegation arrived in Paris with one main goal: a total return to the borders as they stood before 8 December.
But that goal is under pressure from an Israeli military campaign that has launched over 600 strikes since the transition. Data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project shows a steady stream of bombardment that lasted throughout 2025.
The administration of President Ahmed al-Sharaa is facing deep suspicion from Tel Aviv, despite saying it wants peace. Experts like Omer Ozkizilcik of the Atlantic Council suggest that Israel wants to keep Damascus weak and confined. By using ethnic and religious divides to keep the country off balance, this strategy makes it harder for Syria to rebuild or for millions of refugees to finally come home.
Syria might find a lesson in the history of Jordan, which survived the 1980s by making its own stability a necessity for its neighbours’ security. The Hashemite Kingdom stayed intact by making sure that if it collapsed, everyone in the region would feel the pain.
Kurdish Enclaves and the Friction of Integration
In Aleppo, the SDF still runs the neighbourhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiyah.
They have kept their own security teams there for roughly 400,000 residents since 2012. A March 2025 agreement was supposed to bring these fighters into the national army by the end of the year, but that plan has completely stalled.
Recent negotiations between the state and Kurdish commander Mazloum Abdi failed to make any real progress toward a military merger. Damascus wants a single, centralised command that would essentially dissolve the SDF’s independent power. The Kurdish leadership, understandably, wants to keep the influence it has built over the last decade.
Then there is Turkey. Ankara sees the SDF as a major threat and has hinted that while it prefers to talk, it is ready to use its military again if needed. The history of Lebanon serves as a warning here: when a government fails to bring militias into the fold, those groups can eventually become more powerful than the state itself.
Similarly, Iraq’s experience since 2003 shows that a divided military is just an open invitation for outsiders to interfere.
Economic Interests Beneath Political Disputes
The northeast of the country holds four-fifths of Syria’s oil, making it the economic heart of the nation. Damascus needs those funds to rebuild, while the Kurdish forces use that oil as leverage with the Western nations that support them. Neither side can really afford a return to a full-scale war.
American forces still have 900 troops in the region, helping the SDF manage prisons full of former fighters. Washington has made it clear that if Syria wants sanctions lifted, it has to follow through on its promises to integrate the country.
Egypt and Jordan have both mastered the art of managing their own internal pressures while staying useful to the international community. Damascus might find that its place in the world is most secure when its own house is in order.
The Cadence of Decisions
On Tuesday, Damascus agreed to set up a “fusion cell” with the U.S. to share intelligence and lower tensions with Israel.
It is a chance for the government to show the world it can actually lead. However, at the same time, the state is using tough tactics in Aleppo, like cutting off supplies, to force the Kurdish groups to give in. This is a dangerous move that could trigger the very kind of social split that Syria’s adversaries are looking for.
The government’s strategy with the SDF is still unclear. It is hard to tell if they want a real partnership or just total control. History, like the 1970s talks between Argentina and Brazil, shows that mixed signals from inside a government can ruin even the best diplomatic efforts.
By contrast, Jordan and Iraq showed that focusing on shared economic goals, like oil, can keep a relationship alive even when the politics are a mess.
The Synchronised Trial
Some analysts believe Tel Aviv is trying to keep the new Syrian government from ever getting strong enough to truly rule. This creates a trap: Damascus has to take control of its land to prove it is a real government, but doing so gives Israel a reason to keep attacking.
To break this cycle, Damascus has to do two things at once: make concessions abroad and find a way to live with its own people at home. The intelligence-sharing cell with Israel could actually be a model for a similar way to talk with the Kurdish forces, helping to prevent accidents from turning into a new civil war.
Diplomacy is picking up across the Arab world, and there is a real desire for the region to work together on security. Syria could win a lot of trust if it invited neighbours like Egypt or Jordan to help watch over this transition. The world was quick to support Syria after the old regime fell, but that support will vanish if the country slides back into chaos.
With the Paris talks and the Aleppo clashes happening at the same time, the test for Syria’s leaders isn’t about which fire to put out first — they have to find a way to manage the heat on all fronts at once.
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