The Syrian government said it will boycott planned talks in Paris with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), accusing the group of undermining a March unity deal by hosting a conference in the northeastern city of Hasakah.
The event, organized on Friday by the self-administration in northeast Syria under the banner “Unity of Position,” called for a decentralized state and a constitution guaranteeing ethnic, religious and cultural diversity.
Its final statement affirmed Syria’s territorial integrity, but Damascus dismissed it as an attempt to “internationalize the Syrian issue, invite foreign intervention and reinstate sanctions.”
In a statement on Saturday, the government said it would not sit down with “any party seeking to revive the era of the defunct regime under any guise,” in a reference to remnants of the former ruling order toppled in late 2024.
It accused the SDF of hosting separatist figures involved in hostile acts, calling this a “clear breach” of the March 10 agreement, and held the group “fully responsible” for the consequences.
A senior Syrian official told state news agency SANA that ethnic or religious groups have the right to form political parties and express their views, but only through peaceful means, without bearing arms or imposing their vision of the state.
The shape of the state, he said, should be decided in a permanent constitution approved by popular referendum, not through “factional understandings, threats or armed force.”
He described the SDF conference as a “fragile alliance of actors damaged by the Syrian people’s victory and the fall of the old regime,” backed by foreign powers and seeking to evade future political obligations.
The dispute has cast doubt on French- and US-backed mediation efforts announced last month by Paris, Washington and Damascus.
Political analyst Bassam Suleiman told Asharq al-Awsat that France had sought to insert itself into the Damascus-SDF track by leveraging unrest in southern Syria, but the Hasakah meeting had backfired, deepening mistrust.
The conference drew more than 500 participants from political, military and security institutions in northeast Syria, as well as representatives from the coastal and southern regions - including Druze cleric Hikmat al-Hijri from Sweida and Alawite religious leader Ghazal al-Ghazal, both known for opposing the new Syrian authorities. It was the first such gathering to bring together figures from areas that saw violent unrest after the Assad regime’s fall.
Suleiman said the event’s sectarian and tribal overtones reinforced internal divisions, with some participants linked to Israel or armed groups resisting state authority. “Whether France can pressure the SDF to repair the damage and resume talks in Paris remains unclear,” he added.
Another analyst, Thabet Salem, said the Hasakah conference aimed to legitimize emerging power centers, amend the March deal and signal to the international community that Syria should be divided under a decentralized model.
He warned that Syria faced a stark choice between becoming “a stable state stripped of military power but accommodating to international economic interests” or “a fragmented state serving Israel’s security agenda, particularly in water and defense.”
According to Salem, fragmentation would foster extremist groups that could destabilize the entire region, including Israel. “This makes the policies of Syria’s new authorities extremely sensitive, especially as trusting international promises has proved disastrous,” he said.
