Nearly 400 SDF detainees to be released Saturday after delay: Damascus official

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Preparations are underway to release nearly 400 members of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on Saturday after a previously scheduled exchange was delayed, a Syrian official said.

“Preparations are underway to release 397 detainees next Saturday who were formerly affiliated with SDF,” a spokesperson for the Syrian presidential team for implementing a January 29 agreement with the Kurdish-led forces, Ahmed al-Hilali said, as cited by the state-run al-Ikhbariya TV.

This comes after a Syria-SDF prisoner exchange set for Thursday was delayed due to “technical problems,” Hawar news agency (ANHA), which is affiliated with the Kurdish administration in northeast Syria (Rojava) reported on Wednesday.

This follows a January 29 “comprehensive agreement” signed between the SDF and Syria’s transitional government, allowing government forces to enter the Kurdish-majority cities of Hasaka and Qamishli in Rojava.

In mid-March, the Syrian government and the SDF exchanged 600 prisoners - 300 detainees from Damascus and an equal number from the SDF - marking the third phase of such swaps. In the two previous exchanges, 100 and seven prisoners were released.

Hilali on Thursday also said that the SDF will release “the last batch of its detainees” during “the next phase” to hand over all prisons under its control to the Damascus authorities.

The January agreement also called for the formation of three army brigades from SDF fighters to be integrated into the Syrian state, as well as the gradual incorporation of the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES) into state institutions.

The agreement came after weeks of intense fighting during a Damascus-led offensive aimed at recapturing territory previously held by the SDF in northern and northeastern Syria. The Syrian offensive led to the SDF’s gradual withdrawal from territories in eastern Aleppo, Deir ez-Zor, Raqqa, and the predominantly Kurdish Hasaka province.

The SDF, the de facto military force in Rojava and a key partner in the US-led coalition against the Islamic State (ISIS), had maintained control over these areas after liberating them from ISIS.

Most of the released SDF detainees so far have been Arab citizens from Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor provinces, sparking protests among families of Kurdish fighters still in detention.

Since the agreement, negotiations between the Kurdish-led forces and the interim government in Damascus have continued to address unresolved issues, including detainees and missing persons - an issue SDF Commander Mazloum Abdi recently described as “central.”