ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday said that President Donald Trump had "engaged personally" with Syrian interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa during the clashes in Rojava (northeast Syria), and asked him to "stop the fighting" to facilitate the transfer of Islamic State (ISIS) prisoners to Iraq, and expedite the integration of Kurdish-led forces into the Syrian state.

Rubio's remarks came in a presser with Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico in Bratislava, two days after he met Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani and commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) Mazloum Abdi, as members of the same Syrian delegation to the Munich Security Conference.

"The fact is that when this situation erupted in the northeast of Syria, we went, the president engaged personally, not once but twice with al-Sharaa and he said, stop the fighting so that we can move the ISIS prisoners that are there ... Stop the fighting so that we can move these ISIS prisoners and so that you can, we have more time to work on this integration, the integration of the Kurds into the national Syrian forces," Rubio said.

The US has coordinated with Iraq to transfer some 5,700 ISIS prisoners from Syria, owing to a recent bout of instability that broke out in January between Damascus and the SDF, as forces affiliated with the Syrian government advanced on Kurdish-held positions in Rojava.

During its campaign, Damascus took control of the al-Shaddadi prison and al-Hol camp in Hasaka, as well as al-Aqtan prison in Raqqa. The three sites, previously held by the SDF, house tens of thousands of ISIS members and their families, raising concerns about a potential reemergence of the group amid the instability.

The violent spell came to a halt after the Kurdish-led force announced a ceasefire and integration agreement with Damascus on January 29, which saw the entry of Syrian government forces into Kurdish-held areas in Hasaka province, as well as the appointment of the SDF-backed Nureddin Issa, a Kurd, as Hasaka's governor.

The development marked a shift in Syria's political dynamic, with Abdi, as well as Elham Ahmed, co-chair of the Rojava autonomous administration's foreign office, joining Shaibani as part of a Syrian delegation attending the Munich Security Conference.

"We met with the foreign minister of Syria. You know who else was there? General Mazloum ... They came together," Rubio said, adding that he missed a Ukraine meeting with four other European countries "because we were meeting with Syria and the Kurds." 

The US emerged as a staunch supporter of Sharaa's government, after the current president toppled his predecessor Bashar al-Assad's regime in December 2024.

Regarding Washington's foreign policy toward Syria's new authorities, Rubio said that the US faced two options. 

"Choice number one was to let the place fall apart into 18 different pieces. Long-term civil war, instability, mass migration, playground for terrorists, ISIS running all over the place, Iran getting back in. That was choice number one. Choice number two is to try to see if it was possible to work with these interim authorities."

Rubio said that Washington opted for working with the new government because "it made sense."

The SDF was a key ally of the US in the fight against ISIS, and served as the US-led Global Coalition's feet on the ground against the terror group.

Abdi on Friday described his meeting with the US state secretary as "positive", saying that they discussed the integration process and Syria's Kurds .