Syria’s new defense minister has said it would not be right for US-backed Kurdish fighters based in the country’s northeast to retain their own bloc within the broader integrated Syrian armed forces. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) commander Mazloum Abdi has said one of their central demands is a decentralised administration. He said the SDF was open to integrating with the Ministry of Defence but as “a military bloc”, and without dissolving. Abu Qasra rejected that proposal on Sunday. One of the minister’s priorities since taking office has been integrating Syria’s myriad anti-al-Assad factions into a unified command structure, however doing so the SDF has proved challenging. 

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