ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – US Special Envoy for Syria Tom Barrack on Wednesday claimed that his recent meeting with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) was aligned with Turkey’s security interests, denying accusations of undermining Ankara’s concerns.

“I visited Hasakah as an emissary to facilitate and monitor progress on the implementation of the March 10 Agreement between the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Syrian Government,” Barrack wrote on X, asserting that the agreement is of importance to “the strategic interests” of both Ankara and Washington.

Barrack and US Central Command (CENTCOM) Commander Admiral Brad Cooper visited areas in northeast Syria (Rojava) on Monday, meeting with SDF Chief Mazloum Abdi, mere hours before an armed confrontation erupted between Aleppo’s Kurdish-led internal security forces (Asayish) and Syrian government forces.

The envoy, who also serves as the US ambassador to Turkey, has mediated the talks between Damascus and the Kurdish-led administration in Rojava on behalf of Washington.

The diplomat noted that his mediating efforts and engagement in Hasakah “directly serve [Turkey’s] security and economic interests,” denouncing claims accusing him of undermining Turkey’s “territorial integrity” as “entirely unfounded.”

Clashes erupted between the Asayish and Damascus forces in Aleppo’s Kurdish-majority neighborhoods of Ashrafieh and Sheikh Maqsoud on Monday, following a crackdown on demonstrators protesting the government’s unexplained closure of all roads leading to the area.

On Tuesday, delegations from the SDF, led by Abdi, and Damascus, led by Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa, came to a de-escalation agreement to halt the clashes.

Ankara has repeatedly called on the SDF to implement the March 10 agreement and integrate its forces into the Syrian state apparatus. The call was echoed by Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday.

Barrack has long advocated for the integration of the Kurdish-led forces and institutions into the Syrian government, outlined in the March 10 agreement between both parties.

The US-backed SDF is the global coalition’s main ally on the ground in the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS), and is the de facto army in Rojava.

Kurds and other minorities in Syria have called for decentralized governance, a request Damascus has firmly rejected.