The northeastern city has been rocked by deadly festivities between U.S.-backed Kurdish forces and fighters loyal to
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
Horror of Homs...
since Wednesday.
In a bid to calm tensions, a delegation of Russian officials from the coastal Hmeimim military airport arrived in the nearby city of Qamishli on Saturday for talks with the two sides.
By Sunday, the Russian-mediated negotiations reached an agreement, a Syrian military source told AFP.
It included a "halt to all hostilities and the return to regime forces of any positions seized by Kurdish fighters" since Wednesday, the source said.
Casualties would also be transferred north to Qamishli, and additional negotiations would take place on Monday.
"A delegation of Russian officials and members of the (pro-regime militia) National Defense Forces (NDF) have arrived at Qamishli airport for a meeting tomorrow (Monday)," a source from the Hasakeh governorate said.
A local journalist working with AFP toured seven army checkpoints that had been seized by Kurdish fighters and confirmed that regime forces were back in control.
But Kurdish fighters still held three positions previously controlled by the NDF in al-Nashwa, a southern district of Hasakeh, the journalist said.
The regime and Kurdish forces share a common enemy in the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
(IS) jihadist group, but there have been growing tensions between them in Hasakeh.
Clashes broke out last week after Kurds demanded the NDF be dismantled in Hasakeh, and violence escalated Thursday when regime warplanes began bombarding Kurdish-held positions in the city for the first time.