ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Thursday received Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, with the pair discussing Syria’s security and Turkey’s security concerns in northeast Syria.

For the third time since the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime, Fidan visited Damascus on Thursday, where he met with Sharaa as well as his Syrian counterpart Asaad al-Shaibani.

Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency wrote in an article earlier on Thursday that discussions regarding cooperation in fighting the Islamic State (ISIS), as well as the PKK and YPG, were expected to feature in the talks.

The meeting saw the pair discuss “security issues, focusing on internal and external threats to Syria's sovereignty and political unity,” Fidan wrote in an X post after the meeting, adding that “we will continue to support Syria's fight against terrorist organizations.”

Northeastern Syria is governed by an autonomous administration where the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are considered the de-facto army. Turkey considers the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the backbone of the SDF, to be inextricably linked to the PKK and thereby sees the SDF as an extension of their now-disbanded domestic foe.

Syria's President Ahmed al-Sharaa and Abdi signed an agreement in March to officially integrate the SDF and all other institutions in northeast Syria into the Syrian state institutions. Discussions, however, have stagnated since then in light of the violent sprees by certain factions in the Syrian army in the Alawite and Druze heartlands in Syria.

Despite the March agreement, disagreements still run deep between the Kurdish authorities and Sharaa’s government about the model of governance in Syria, with Sharaa aiming to consolidate power and maintain full sovereignty over all Syrian territories, while the Kurds advocate for a federal state where they maintain a degree of self-governance.

The integration of armed forces and institutions of north and east Syria into the Syrian state cannot be achieved by force, said the general commander of the SDF Mazloum Abdi, expressing their willingness to take “practical steps” toward an understanding with Damascus In an interview with the SDF-affiliated Hawar News Agency (ANHA) on Monday.

“Integration means partnership. Between all Syrians, between Syria's components, and between all existing administrations, a new Syria must be built on the basis of a new partnership. This cannot be imposed by force, and from the beginning, we have opposed any attempt to impose it by force,” Abdi told ANHA.

The SDF on Monday reported that their forces engaged in clashes with factions affiliated with the Damascus government after the latter launched an attack on SDF positions in northern Syria.