The Syrian government and the main Kurdish-led force in the country’s northeast have agreed in principle on a plan to merge the US-backed force as a cohesive group into the national army, Syria’s main Kurdish commander said Thursday, AP reports.

The comments by Mazloum Abdi, commander of the Kurdish-led and US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), in an interview Thursday with AP appeared to signal a breakthrough after talks between the SDF and the central government in Damascus had floundered for months. In December, insurgent groups led by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, marched into the capital Damascus removing President Bashar Assad from power and forcing him to flee to Russia.

The new Sunni-led leadership in Damascus under interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa, the former leader of HTS, inked a deal in March with the SDF, which controls much of the country’s northeast. Under the agreement, the SDF was to merge its forces with the new Syrian army, but details were left vague and implementation has stalled.

A major sticking point had been whether the SDF would remain as a cohesive unit in the new army or whether the force would be dissolved and its members individually absorbed into the new military. Abdi said the two sides have now agreed on a “mechanism” for the merger.

“We are talking about a large number, tens of thousands of soldiers, as well as thousands of internal security forces,” Abdi said. “These forces cannot join the Syrian army individually, like other small factions. Rather, they will join as large military formations formed according to the rules of the Defense Ministry.”

He added that they have formed a committee that will work with the defense minister and other military officials to specify the “suitable mechanisms.” Abdi said that he expects SDF members and commanders who will join the national military will receive good posts at the Defense Ministry and army command.