Syria announces ceasefire with Kurdish fighters in Aleppo

• Ceasefire and Withdrawal: Syria’s Defense Ministry announced a ceasefire in Aleppo effective 3:00 AM Friday, establishing a six-hour window for Kurdish-led SDF fighters to withdraw from the Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiyeh neighborhoods toward northeastern Syria with only light weapons.
• Escalation and Displacement: The truce follows three days of intense clashes that killed at least 21 people and displaced over 140,000 civilians, marking the most significant breakdown in the fragile March 2025 agreement intended to integrate Kurdish forces into the new post-Assad government.

Syria's defence ministry announced a ceasefire in Aleppo on Friday after days of deadly clashes between the army and Kurdish fighters forced thousands of civilians to flee.

The violence killed 21 people and was the latest challenge for a country still struggling to forge a new path after longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad was ousted just over a year ago.

Since Tuesday, government forces have been fighting the US-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Aleppo, the country's second city.

Both sides have traded blame over who started the fighting, which comes as they struggle to implement a deal to merge the Kurds' administration and military into the country's new government.

The SDF controls swathes of Syria's oil-rich north and northeast, and was key to the territorial defeat of Daesh in Syria in 2019.

"To prevent any slide towards a new military escalation within residential neighbourhoods, the Ministry of Defence announces ... a ceasefire in the vicinity of the Sheikh Maqsud, Ashrafiyeh and Bani Zeid neighbourhoods of Aleppo, effective from 3:00 am," the ministry wrote in a statement.

Kurdish fighters were given until 9:00 AMm Friday (06:00 GMT) to leave those areas, while the Aleppo governorate said Kurdish fighters would be sent, along with their light weapons, to Kurdish areas further east.

The goal of the ceasefire is for civilians who were displaced by the fighting to be able "to return and resume their normal lives in an atmosphere of security and stability", the defence ministry said.

The governor of Aleppo, Azzam al-Gharib, told the official SANA news agency that he had inspected the security arrangements in the Ashrafiyeh neighbourhood.

There was no immediate comment from Kurdish forces in response to the government statements.

The United States welcomed the ceasefire in a post on X by its envoy Tom Barrack.

He said Washington hoped for "a more enduring calm and deeper dialogue" and was "working intensively to extend this ceasefire and spirit of understanding".

Fierce fighting was reported across the Kurdish-majority Ashrafiyeh and Sheikh Maqsud districts into Thursday night.

Syria's military had instructed civilians in those neighbourhoods to leave through humanitarian corridors ahead of launching the operation.

State television reported that around 16,000 people had fled.