Kurds Make ‘Secret Offer’ to Damascus

Members of the People's Protection Units (YPG) gather in the town of Shadadi. AFP file photo
Members of the People's Protection Units (YPG) gather in the town of Shadadi. AFP file photo
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Kurds Make ‘Secret Offer’ to Damascus

Members of the People's Protection Units (YPG) gather in the town of Shadadi. AFP file photo
Members of the People's Protection Units (YPG) gather in the town of Shadadi. AFP file photo

The top commander of the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), Sipan Hemo, has recently visited Damascus and Moscow to make a “secret offer” on the group’s approval to hand over the border area with Turkey to the “Syrian State” in exchange for forming a local administration under Russian guarantees, informed sources told Asharq Al-Awsat on Friday.

The sources said the YPG is aiming to strike a deal on “filling the gap” following the US decision to withdraw from Syria, and to also cut off any Turkish interference in the north and northeast of Syria.

Days after US President Donald Trump’s decision more than two weeks ago to pull US forces out of Syria, Hemo traveled to the Russian military base in Hmeimim, then held a secret meeting in Damascus with Syrian intelligence chief Ali Mamlouk and Defense Minister Gen Ali Abdullah Ayoub, in the presence of a Russian military delegation, the sources told the newspaper.

Also, on Dec. 29, while a high-ranking Turkish delegation, led by Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu visited Moscow, Hemo met with Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu and Chief of the Russian General Staff Valery Gerasimov in the Russian capital.

The YPG stressed in its message to Damascus the need to avoid repeating the mistake committed in Syria’s Afrin.

The Kurds had lost control of the northwest canton of Afrin after an assault by the Turkish military and its proxy fighters.

The Kurdish group expressed willingness to hand over the border area of east Syria to Bashar Assad’s forces and allow the “Syrian State” to have sovereignty there.

The YPG’s offer came as the US administration worked on speeding up arrangements for the withdrawal of its troops from Syria.

Washington is arranging for the visit of White House National Security Adviser John Bolton to the east Euphrates area following talks expected in Ankara next Monday, and before his scheduled trip to Tel Aviv.



Trump Calls for Hamas to Be ‘Confronted and Destroyed’ for Hostage Return

 President Donald Trump speaks to reporters aboard Air Force One while en route to meet with Russia's President Vladimir Putin at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, Friday, Aug. 15, 2025. (AP)
President Donald Trump speaks to reporters aboard Air Force One while en route to meet with Russia's President Vladimir Putin at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, Friday, Aug. 15, 2025. (AP)
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Trump Calls for Hamas to Be ‘Confronted and Destroyed’ for Hostage Return

 President Donald Trump speaks to reporters aboard Air Force One while en route to meet with Russia's President Vladimir Putin at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, Friday, Aug. 15, 2025. (AP)
President Donald Trump speaks to reporters aboard Air Force One while en route to meet with Russia's President Vladimir Putin at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, Friday, Aug. 15, 2025. (AP)

US President Donald Trump said the remaining hostages held in the Israel-Gaza war will only be released “when Hamas is confronted and destroyed!!!”

“The sooner this takes place, the better the chances of success will be,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social site Monday morning.

Fearing an imminent Israeli ground offensive, thousands of Palestinians have left their homes in eastern areas of Gaza City, now under constant Israeli bombardment, for points to the west and south in the shattered territory.

Israel's plan to seize control of Gaza City has stirred alarm abroad and at home where tens of thousands of Israelis held some of the largest protests since the war began, urging a deal to end the fighting and free the remaining 50 hostages held by Palestinian fighters in Gaza since October 7, 2023.

The planned offensive has spurred Egyptian and Qatari ceasefire mediators to step up efforts in what a source familiar with the talks with Hamas in Cairo said could be "the last-ditch attempt."

Hamas told mediators it was ready to resume talks about a US-proposed 60-day truce and release of half the hostages, one official, who asked not to be named, told Reuters, but also for a wider deal that would end the war.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has described Gaza City as Hamas' last big urban bastion. But, with Israel already holding 75% of Gaza, the military has warned that expanding the offensive could endanger hostages still alive and draw troops into protracted and deadly guerrilla warfare.