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

The comments by Mazloum Abdi, commander of the Kurdish-led and U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, in an interview Thursday with The Associated Press 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 attack marked the end of a five-decade rule by the Assad family, who belong to the minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

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.