One of the most intriguing twists came on Thursday as news leaked that the SDF commander-in-chief, Mazlum Kobane, would be taking part in the Munich Security Conference, the annual junket for global leaders and assorted high-fliers that mimics Davos. And so he did. Footage making the rounds on social media of Kobane and Syrian Foreign Minister Assad Shibani meeting with a US delegation led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Munich on Friday marked the Kurdish commander’s shift from the battlefield to global diplomacy.
It wasn’t clear until the last minute that he would actually make it — visa wrinkles, methinks. But what a coup. Let’s not forget that the last time Kobane was in Europe for any length of time was as head of the European wing of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) between 1995 and 1999. He was in Geneva very briefly in 2019 to sign a protocol with the United Nations not to recruit child soldiers. The PKK remains on the United States’ list of designated terrorist organizations and is similarly proscribed by EU governments.
Damascus is furious about his presence, well-placed sources tell me. Still, Shibani put a brave face on it all. One might surmise that Anka
ra is not too thrilled, either. Kobane remains on Turkey’s red list of most wanted terrorists.
Syrian Kurds lift up flags and flash the V for victory sign during a demonstration in the city of Hasakeh in northeastern Syria, on Feb. 1, 2026, as they rally behind the Kurdish forces and support the recent agreement with the government. (Photo by Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP via Getty Images)
However, speculation is rife that Kobane might meet behind closed doors with Turkey’s intelligence chief, Ibrahim Kalin, who was also expected to attend the Munich affair. Kalin is front and center in the ongoing talks with imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan to resolve Turkey’s Kurdish question, which is tightly intertwined with the Kurds’ fate in Syria. Turkey wanted Ocalan to use his sway over the SDF to dial down its autonomy dreams.
Well-placed sources told me some weeks ago that such a meeting, possibly in Ankara, might happen if Kobane went along with the terms of an integration deal that he signed on Jan. 18 with Damascus. He didn’t, and thanks to plenty of last-minute support from the US Congress, the SDF managed to improve the terms, concluding a fresh deal on Jan. 30. It allows the SDF to preserve four brigades, albeit under the command of Syria’s national army.
Turkey seemed to have accepted this outcome along with Damascus. A goodwill gesture that I reported saw 100 non-Syrian PKK militants relocate from Syria to bases in Iraqi Kurdistan over the past couple of weeks. It will have helped to soften Turkey’s resistance to the idea of preserving some SDF brigades. Nechirvan Barzani, the president of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, was instrumental in pushing through that step during a Jan. 22 meeting with Kobane in Erbil.
With US troops pulling out of northeast Syria, as Jared Szuba reported, Turkish paranoia about a US-supported Kurdish statelet in Syria seems to finally be subsiding. Still, Turkey says it has no plans to withdraw its thousands of troops from Syria anytime soon.
Either way, after a dreadful few weeks — the SDF lost 80% of the territory it ran to government forces — this jaunt to Bavaria will have given Kobane a sorely needed boost.