Syria's political changes continue to run at a good clip.

This week, Syria's interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa signed a ceasefire deal with the Kurdish-led authority, the Syrian Democratic Forces, in the country's northeast.

The agreement marks an end to hostilities between Turkish-backed Syrian forces and US-backed Kurdish forces.

It also outlines the merger of the Kurdish forces into the Syrian army, which has been a key obstacle since al-Sharaa announced the dissolution of all armed forces in Syria, including his own Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham militia, or HTS, in favor of a new, unified Syrian force.

Furthermore, it brings some 30% of previously Kurdish-controlled area at the border with Iraq and Turkey under the control of the central government.

"The agreement between Damascus and the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces is a major step towards reunifying Syria," Nanar Hawach, a senior analyst for Syria at the conflict prevention organization International Crisis Group, told DW.

"However, the timing of the deal is also important," he added.

"Not only has Israel been intervening in the south of Syria, it has also been trying to drive a wedge between Damascus and minorities, especially the Kurds and the Druze," Hawach told DW.

"The recent massacres [of Syria's Alawite minority by government forces] on the coast really pushed for this agreement," he added. 

This view is echoed by Charles Lister, senior fellow of the Washington-based Middle East Institute, and head of the institute's Syria Initiative.

"The deal had essentially been on the table for weeks," he said during an online briefing on Tuesday.

Damascus consolidating power, legitimacy

Chrissie Steenkamp, associate professor in Social and Political Change with a focus on the Middle East at UK's Oxford Brookes University, has no doubt that Damascus has been very invested in clinching the deal with the Kurds.

"The agreement represents two wins for Damascus," she told DW.

"First, the government in Damascus establishes their territorial and political control as well as their recognition as Syria's legitimate government," Steenkamp said.

"The second aspect is the economic win as the deal grants Damascus access to the oil and gas revenues in the east of Syria, which is quite significant in the greater scheme of things."

Charles Lister agrees. "The core architecture of the agreement is that the oil and energy infrastructure in the northeast would be turned over to the interim government, but on the condition that revenues from it would be proportionally shared with the northeast and channelled into civil and humanitarian activities and investments in the northeast of Syria," he said.

A boost for Syria's economy certainly ranks high on the list of priorities for the interim goverment in Damascus.

The country needs major reconstruction after 14 years of civil war that ended in December 2024 with the HTS-led ouster of Syria's long-term dictator President Bashar Assad.

Recognition, more autonomy for Kurds

The new landmark deal marks a huge shift for the around 2.5 million Kurdish people in Syria as well.

During the last five decades under the rule of the Assad-family, the country's largest minority used to be marginalized and repressed.

With the exception of the Kurdish-controlled northeast, it was forbidden to speak Kurdish, Kurdish holidays were banned and many Kurds were deprived of Syrian nationality.

"With the new deal, they are being recognized as an ethnic group in Syria, and they are promised some level of autonomy with regards to their language and identity," Steenkamp said.

Meanwhile, a government statement also confirmed that "the Kurdish community is an essential component of the Syrian state which guarantees its right to citizenship and all of its constitutional rights."

"Obviously this is something that they [the Kurds] have been fighting for in the Middle East," Steenkamp said.

However, observers also point out that the Kurdish quest for authority and recognition of their identity is far from sealed with the new deal, which is to be implemented by the end of the year.

"We see a framework agreement, it is not a comprehensive deal," Charles Lister said.

"All the details about military dissolution and integration, all the deals around local and decentralized governance, still have to be worked out," he added.

Changing security alliances

But the Kurds' future depends on more than the good will of the Syrian government.

For years, Turkey has been targeting the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in Syria's northeast.

And Ankara considers the Kurds in Syria to be affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers' Party, PKK, which Turkey claims is a terrorist organization.

On March 1, the group announced a ceasefire which is widely seen as indicator for its coming dissolution. For the time being, however, it remains to be seen in what way this will affect Kurds in Syria.

Moreover, US troops have played a key role in Kurdish security for years, with several thousand US troops training and supporting Kurdish forces in the fight against the Islamic State (IS) group.

Currently, some 9,000 suspected Islamic State members are detained in Kurdish prisons.

Another 40,000 IS fighters and their families are estimated to live in Kurdish-led detention camps.

All of these institutions will now be under the control by Damascus, though it remains unclear how long US troops will remain in Syria given the foreign politicy reset taking place under US President Donald Trump.

Nanar Hawach regards the new deal between the Kurds and Damascus as a chance for a higher level of security cooperation within Syria.

"Damascus might join the coalition to fight ISIS [the terror organization Islamic State in Syria]," Hawach told DW.

For the Syrian people and the Kurdish minority, meanwhile, hope prevails over any uncertainties of the details or the implementation of the new deal. 

"The fact that we now have a publicly announced framework agreement is obviously really encouraging," Charles Lister said.

"You need only look at every single corner of Syria last night and the celebrations that took place to see how desperate Syrians are for this to work," he added. 

Edited by: Jon Shelton