The Syrian regime has ended its siege of the AANES-governed Sheikh Maqsood and Ashrafiyyeh neighborhoods in Aleppo City, following a mutual agreement between the regime and Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES).
The siege began on March 13, when the regime fired upon civilian vehicles transporting flour and other basic goods into the neighborhoods after they refused to pay new taxes that the Syrian Army’s Fourth Armored Division attempted to levy against them. Asayish responded by isolating the regime-held security squares in Qamishli and Hasakah cities. The 200,000 people in the Kurdish-majority Aleppo neighborhoods had been at risk of starvation due to no flour being allowed into their areas for nearly two months.
As part of the agreement, Syrian regime forces will no longer be able to impose fees on civilians bringing basic goods to the neighborhoods, and the Asayish have withdrawn from the roads surrounding the regime squares in Qamishli and Hasakah. Reportedly, the people of the AANES-governed Shehba enclave, located to the north of Aleppo, and home to hundreds of thousands of IDPs from Turkish-occupied Afrin, have also been guaranteed unhindered access to Aleppo.