Syrian authorities on Saturday began transferring Kurdish fighters from the country’s second city, Aleppo, to areas they control in the country’s northeast, state television reported, after days of deadly clashes.
The violence in Aleppo erupted after efforts to integrate the Kurds’ de facto autonomous administration and military into the country’s new government stalled.
Since the fighting began on Tuesday, at least 21 civilians have been killed, according to figures from both sides, while Aleppo’s governor said 155,000 people have been displaced.
On Saturday evening, state television reported that Kurdish fighters “who announced their surrender … were transported by bus to the city of Tabaqa” in the Kurdish-controlled northeast.
An AFP correspondent saw at least five buses on Saturday carrying fighters leaving the Kurdish-majority Sheikh Maqsud district, accompanied by security forces.
Their departure came as US envoy Tom Barrack on Saturday met with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, and afterwards issued a call for a “return to dialogue” with the Kurds in accordance with an integration agreement sealed last year.
In a statement to the official SANA news agency earlier today, the military announced “a halt to all military operations in the Sheikh Maqsud neighbourhood”.
A Syrian security source had told AFP that the last Kurdish fighters had entrenched themselves in the area of al-Razi hospital in Sheikh Maqsud, before being evacuated by authorities.
On the outskirts of Sheikh Maqsud, families who were unable to flee the violence were leaving, accompanied by Syrian security forces, according to an AFP correspondent.
Men were carrying their children on their backs as women and children wept, before entering buses taking them to shelters.
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