ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – The Kurdish-run Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) on Monday announced the conclusion of their security operations along the Tishrin Dam after “more than one hundred days.”

In late November of last year, Turkish-backed forces launched a campaign under the name “Operation Dawn of Freedom” on several key areas controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), with the Tishreen dam being a focal point in the clashes.

“We announce today the conclusion of this resistance operation — while reaffirming our continued vigilance and readiness to confront any new threat,” the AANES said in a statement on their official Facebook account, adding that the operation had “successfully protected the land and its gains.”

Syrian state media outlet SANA reported in mid-April that Syrian security forces had assumed positions at the Tishrin Dam as part of an agreement with the SDF, with the operations of the dam to remain under Kurdish civilian administration.

Turkey considers the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the backbone of the SDF, to be inextricably linked to its domestic foe, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)—an armed group that has fought for increased Kurdish rights in Turkey for decades and is designated a terrorist organization by Ankara—and thereby sees the SDF as an extension of the PKK.

The SDF said early in January that the fighting was jeopardizing the integrity of the dam, warning that aerial bombardments were putting the strategic structure under the risk of collapse, while laying the blame for any potential compromises to the structure on Turkey “due to the ongoing Turkish air and artillery strikes.”

The dam, described by the AANES as “a unifying national symbol, a stronghold of popular resistance against Turkish ambitions,” has seen numerous bloody clashes, with hundreds of casualties shared between the two foes.