ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - The Syrian government and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) began exchanging some 250 prisoners on Thursday in the northern city of Aleppo, in accordance with a deal signed between the two sides earlier in the week.

“The process of clearing prisons of prisoners has begun between the internal security sirectorate in Aleppo and the Syrian Democratic Forces," Syrian state media reported, adding that the number of prisoners exchanged has reached approximately 250 people.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported on Tuesday that a preliminary prisoner-swap deal was struck between the SDF and the new Syrian administration.

The agreement would see the release of 170 SDF prisoners in exchange for 400 members of the new authorities’ security forces and armed factions that are held by the Kurdish-led forces, in addition to the exchange of bodies on both sides. The war monitor added that the swap would be carried out with the “knowledge and participation” of the US – a close ally of the SDF.

In December, the Syrian National Army (SNA) – a Turkish-backed umbrella of opposition militias - launched an offensive on SDF-controlled territories in northeastern Syria, resulting in bloody clashes along the Tishrin dam and Qarqozak bridge as well as northern and eastern Aleppo.

The deal would also see the Kurdish-led Internal Security Forces (Asayish) in Aleppo’s Kurdish-majority neighborhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiyah transformed into the General Security Forces, under the supervision of the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES).