Will this be the deal that makes peace possible in Syria?

A Kurdish-led rebel coalition which dominates north-eastern Syria has signed a deal with the interim government in Damascus. The agreement, which means the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) will look to hand over border posts and oil and gas fields under its control, recognizes the Kurdish minority as “an integral part of the Syrian state.” Peace in Syria is now a little bit more likely.

After a week of new threats to the stability of Syria, with hundreds killed in a series of massacres, this tentative deal is one that many thought might never happen. SDF commander Mazloum Abdi was not in his usual military garb when he signed the deal in Damascus with interim Syrian president Ahmed al-Sharaa. Abdi is a warlord, ordinarily pictured in fatigues and seen in the northeast of the country, the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES). On Sunday, he wore a suit to put pen to paper on the long-hoped for agreement.

Much is still to do. The SDF is not disarming. So far it has not produced any timetable of how it will integrate into Syria’s new armed forces. But, for the moment, there’s optimism. Last night there were celebrations across Syria, with people pouring into the streets and squares, blasting music and flying the free Syrian flag.

In the SDF-controlled parts of Syria, violence has waxed and waned. Many Arabs (the majority of Syria’s north and east) who live under Kurdish military councils do not like their children being conscripted into the SDF and its various militia structures. When they demonstrate against conscription and military rule, they are often fired upon by SDF-affiliated fighters. Every week, people die as a result.

Tensions have simmered for years. Years ago, I remember communicating with a local Arab tribal figure in a city that was under SDF control. He sent me video after video of a particular protest: film of groups of men gathering in protest, singing and chanting, and being shot at. He sent me photo after photo of the dead — with bullet wounds peppering their bodies — laid out on tables.

Anything that can stop this violence and restore law and order across Syria cannot be a bad thing. Let us hope this meeting, and this agreement, brings the country closer to a kind of peace.

To understand why this deal matters, it’s worth reflecting on just how important the resources under the SDF’s control are to the Syrian state and the new government’s hopes of rebuilding the country after the devastation caused by a decade-and-a-half of civil war.

The SDF controls the border crossings to Iraq; it has an airport; and — most important for Syria’s economy, if it is to get back on its feet — the SDF controls oil deposits and gas fields which are the majority of the country’s hydrocarbon production. Without nationalizing these resources, the government in Damascus will not control its borders. It will always be starved for cash. Reconstruction of the rest of Syria, including formerly rich cities like Aleppo and Homs, may be indefinitely postponed. This agreement pledges that these resources will be turned over to a national Syrian government — details still to come — by the end of the year.

In the past, the SDF and the Kurdish groups that preceded it worked with the Assad regime. The People’s Protection Units (YPG), which later became the SDF, was a major — and bitterly resented part — of the regime’s dreadful siege of Aleppo which reached its awful final stages in 2016. Now, according to the deal signed by Abdi, the new government and the SDF will work together against campaigns of sabotage and subversion from the remnants of the regime of Bashar al-Assad, which last week launched a series of ambushes and raids along the coast that left hundreds dead.

Foreign countries like Israel and Iran want Syria divided; they want to pick and choose armed groups within the country; to send them weapons, keep them fighting. If groups, like the SDF and the new authorities in Damascus, which demonstrably control territory and major cities, can sign agreements and cooperate, they can collectively decrease those sources of intrigue and tension. Only if Syria is whole, if it is ruled from the center, can it survive a concatenation of outside threats.

Turkey insists that the SDF is the product of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is a terrorist group according to the British, American and European Union terror lists. While the SDF remains in power in parts of Syria, further Turkish intervention in the country remains likely. Turkish forces have already invaded Syria in the course of several military operations. Those attacks were bloody and disruptive. If the SDF can ally itself with the new government, which already has close ties to Turkish intelligence and Turkey’s armed forces, the possibility of another Turkish operation decreases sharply. This ability to work together is also vital if Syria, a country that has suffered terribly over the last 15 years, will ever be able to recover.