BRATISLAVA: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Sunday that Washington is pleased with the “trajectory” in Syria, which has launched talks with Kurdish minority groups, despite troubles.
“There’s been some days that have been very concerning, but we like the trajectory,” Rubio said on a brief visit to Bratislava. “We have to keep it on that trajectory. We’ve got good agreements in place.”
Rubio added, however, that a deal between Syrian authorities and the Kurdish minority must now be implemented.
“That’s not going to be easy and there other such agreements that they need to reach with the Druze, with the Bedouins, with the Alawites – with all the elements of a very diverse society in Syria,” Rubio said.
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Syrian leaders in Damascus and Kurdish officials announced in January, after months of deadlock and armed clashes, that they had reached an agreement to integrate Kurdish forces and autonomous areas of Syria into the Syrian state.
A de facto separate Kurdish state was established in northeast of the country during Syria’s civil war (2011-2024).
The United States had supported Kurdish forces in their fight against the Islamic State (ISIS) jihadist group starting in 2014.
But after the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad at the end of 2024, the President Donald Trump’s administration backed Syrian leader Ahmad al-Sharaa – whose forces drove Assad from power – in his bid to impose authority over the entire country.
Rubio on Sunday defended the administration’s embrace of al-Sharaa – even against the former Kurdish allies – by arguing that Washington faced a difficult decision in Syria.
The process, “as difficult as it’s been, is far better than a Syria that would’ve been broken up into eight pieces with all kinds of fighting going on, all kinds of mass migration,” Rubio said. “So we were very positive about that.”
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