ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey told Russian President Vladimir Putin in a phone call on Friday that Ankara was backing the integration of Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) into the Syrian government’s defense forces.
 
Turkey “backs the absorption of the so-called ‘Syrian Democratic Forces' into the central administration," adding that "stopping Syria, in its entirety, from serving as a fertile ground for terrorist organizations is of vital importance for the country’s stability,” according to a readout of the phone call released by the Turkish presidency.

Erdogan and Putin also voiced the significance of enhanced coordination between Moscow and Ankara in Syria.
 
Turkey and Russia should cooperate to "restore peace and stability in Syria based on the country’s territorial integrity,” the readout said, detailing that the two leaders agreed that both countries “can work together to thwart attempts that seek to disrupt Syria’s unity by stoking ethnic and sectarian separatism, as well as to secure the lifting of all sanctions on Syria.”
 
The SDF is the Kurdish de facto army in northeastern Syria that controls nearly a quarter of the country.

Sporadic clashes between the Kurdish forces and Turkish-affiliated rebel groups in SDF-controlled areas occurred in November and the ensuing months soon after sweeping rebel offensive against the Assad government, resulting in casualties and leading to the displacement of thousands of civilians.
 
The 11-day rebel offensive, spearheaded by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), brought the five-decade-long rule of the Assad family to an end on December 8, an unprecedented development after over a decade of civil war that emboldened the Turkish-backed rebels to launch a parallel attack on the Kurdish forces.
 
Turkey considers the People’s Protection Units (YPG), effectively the backbone of the SDF, as inextricably linked to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and currently fights Kurdish-led forces in Syria. The YPG, however, deny linkages with the PKK, with the latter group being designated as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union, among others. 

On March 10, SDF commander-in-chief Mazloum Abdi signed an agreement with Syria's interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa to officially integrate the Kurdish-led forces and all other institutions in northeast Syria into the Syrian state institutions.
 
The Erdogan-Putin phone call comes amid talks of unity among Kurdish factions in Syria. Northeast Syria’s opposition coalition, the Kurdish National Council in Syria (ENKS), and the ruling Democratic Union Party (PYD) earlier in March held “positive” talks on forming a united Kurdish front in Damascus in the presence of Abdi and US envoy Scott Bolz.
 
Recent developments have significantly influenced the peace talks between Ankara and the PKK. In late February, the imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan called on the party to disarm and dissolve, marking a potential turning point in efforts to end the four-decade-long conflict.