DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — A U.S. envoy said Wednesday that Syria’s central government and the Kurds remain at odds over plans on merging their forces after the latest round of talks, a persistent obstacle as the new authorities in Damascus struggle to consolidate control after the country's yearslong civil war.
U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack, who is also a special envoy to Syria, told The Associated Press after meetings in Damascus, the Syrian capital, that there are still significant differences between the sides. Barrack held talks with Mazloum Abdi, head of the Kurdish-led and U.S. backed Syrian Democratic Forces, and Syria’s interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa.
The development comes after a move by the Trump administration took effect this week, revoking a terrorism designation of the former insurgent group led by al-Sharaa, which was behind a lightning offensive last December that ousted Syria's longtime autocrat Bashar Assad.
Revoking the designation was part of a broader U.S. engagement with al-Sharaa's new, transitional government.
In early March, the former insurgents — now the new authorities in Damascus — signed a landmark deal with the SDF, a Kurdish-led force that had fought alongside U.S. troops against the militant Islamic State group and which controls much of northeastern Syria.
Under that deal, the SDF forces would merge with the new Syrian national army. The agreement, which is supposed be implemented by the end of the year, would also bring all border crossings with Iraq and Turkey, airports and oil fields in the northeast under the central government’s control. They are now controlled by the SDF.
Detention centers housing thousands of Islamic State militants, now guarded by the SDF, would also come under government control.
However, the agreement left the details vague, and progress on implementation has been slow. A major sticking point has been whether the SDF would remain as a cohesive unit in the new army — which the Syrian Kurds are pushing for — or whether the force would be dissolved and its members individually absorbed into the new military.
Barrack said that is still “a big issue” between the two sides.
“I don’t think there’s a breakthrough,” Barrack said after Wednesday’s meetings. “I think these things happen in baby steps, because it’s built on trust, commitment and understanding."
He added that "for two parties that have been apart for a while and maybe an adversarial relationship for a while, they have to build that trust step by step.”
Also, Turkish-backed factions affiliated with the new Syrian government have over the years clashed with the SDF, which Turkey considers a terrorist group because of its association with the Kurdish separatist Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, which had waged a decades-long insurgency within Turkey before recently announcing it would lay down its weapons.
The United States also considers the PKK a terrorist group but is allied with the SDF.
Barrack said that though “we’re not there” yet, Damascus had “done a great job" in presenting options for the SDF to consider.
"I hope they will and I hope they’ll do it quickly,” he said.
A key turning point for Syria came when U.S. President Donald Trump met with al-Sharaa in Saudi Arabia in May and announced that Washington would lift decades of sanctions, imposed over Assad's government.
Trump took steps to do so after their meeting and subsequently, the U.S. moved to remove the terrorist designation from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, al-Sharaa's force that spearheaded the offensive against Assad.
The U.S. played a key role in brokering the deal announced in March between al-Sharaa's government and the SDF and has urged the Syrian Kurdish authorities to integrate with Damascus.
Barrack said Washington has “complete confidence in the Syrian government and the new Syrian government’s military,” while the SDF has been a “valuable partner” in the fight against IS and that the U.S. “wants to make sure that they have an opportunity ... to integrate into the new government in a respectful way.”
The U.S. has begun scaling down the number of troops it has stationed in Syria — there are about 1,300 U.S. forces now — but Barrack said Washington is in “no hurry” to pull out completely.
In the interview with the AP, Barrack also downplayed reports of possible breakthroughs in talks on normalizing ties between Syria and Israel.
“My feeling of what’s happening in the neighborhood is that it should happen, and it’ll happen like unwrapping an onion, slowly ... as the region builds trust with each other,” he said without elaborating.
Since Assad’s fall, Israel has seized a U.N.-patrolled buffer zone in Syria bordering the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights and has launched hundreds of airstrikes on military sites in Syria. Israeli soldiers have also raided Syrian towns outside of the border zone and detained people who they said were militants, sometimes clashing with locals.
Israeli officials have said they are taking the measures to guard their border against another cross-border attack like the one launched by the Palestinian militant Hamas group on Oct. 7, 2023 in southern Israel that triggered the latest war in the Gaza Strip.
U.S. Ambassador to Turkey and Special Envoy to Syria Tom Barrack speaks during an interview with The Associated Press at the airport in Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, July 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)
Syria's interim president, Ahmad al-Sharaa, right, meets with U.S. Ambassador to Turkey and Special Envoy to Syria Tom Barrack at the People's Palace in Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, July 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)
U.S. Ambassador to Turkey and Special Envoy to Syria Tom Barrack speaks during an interview with The Associated Press at the airport in Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, July 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — In rain, snow and bitter cold, a steady drumbeat of small protests have been held in recent months on the Ohio State University main campus with a single goal in mind: removing billionaire retail mogul Les Wexner's name from buildings where it's emblazoned.
At issue — for union nurses at OSU's Wexner Medical Center, for former athletes at the Les Wexner Football Complex, and for some student leaders who may walk past the Wexner Center for the Arts near the campus oval — is Wexner's well-documented association with the late sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein.
Similar cries are arising over a Wexner-named building at Harvard University and others around the country whose names appeared in the Epstein files, including Steve Tisch, Casey Wasserman, Glenn Dubin and Howard Lutnick.
It's all part of the backlash across higher education against figures with ties to Epstein, who cultivated an extensive network including powerful people in the arts, business and academia. Scrutiny has landed on university donors as well as several academics whose emails with Epstein surfaced in the latest files, including some who have resigned.
Wexner hasn't been charged with any crime in connection with Epstein, the one-time financial adviser by whom he says he was “duped.”
But a group of former Ohio State athletes who survived a sweeping sexual abuse scandal at the school argues that the retired L Brands founder 's generosity to his alma mater is now tainted by the knowledge that Epstein was entangled in many of his family's spending decisions, including around the football complex's naming.
“Ohio State University cannot credibly separate itself from these facts, nor can it justify continuing to honor Les Wexner with an athletic facility,” their naming removal request read. It went on, “To do so is to ignore the voices of survivors, former athletes, and the broader community who expect accountability, transparency, and moral leadership.”
At Harvard, a group of students and faculty at the prestigious Kennedy School has targeted the Leslie H. Wexner Building and the Wexner-Sunshine Lobby. The renaming request submitted in March cites Wexner’s “strong ties to Epstein” and argues Epstein profited off Wexner, “which enabled Epstein to use his wealth and power to traffic and abuse children and women.”
Some Harvard students and alumni also want the Farkas name removed from Farkas Hall, which hosts the Hasty Pudding Theatricals Man and Woman of the Year. The building was renamed in 2011 following a significant donation from Andrew Farkas, graduate chairman of the Hasty Pudding Institute, in honor of his father.
Farkas had a longtime personal and business relationship with Epstein, including co-owning a marina with him in the Caribbean. He also repeatedly asked Epstein to donate to Hasty Pudding. Between roughly 2013 and 2019, Epstein regularly donating $50,000 annually to secure top-tier donor status, for a total of more than $300,000.
“As I’ve said repeatedly, I deeply regret ever having met this individual, but at no time have I conducted myself inappropriately,” Farkas said in a statement.
Pushback against buildings named for Epstein associates and others named in the Epstein files is growing on some U.S. campuses.
Just last weekend, the student body at Haverford College in Pennsylvania voted to urge President Wendy Raymond to forge ahead with the renaming process for the Allison & Howard Lutnick Library. The building is named for the U.S. commerce secretary who has faced resignation calls over his relationship with Epstein.
Raymond had said in a February open letter that she wasn't ready to do that. In a statement to The Associated Press following Sunday’s vote, Raymond said she respected the process and would respond to the resolution within the customary 30-day period.
At Ohio State, pleas against the Wexner name are making their way through a five-step review procedure, most of which takes place outside public view and with no set timeline. The university's new president, Ravi Bellamkonda said, “I think the process is thorough, fair, and open, and I will promise you that we will give each request a full consideration.”
A spokesman for Harvard confirmed the school has received the Wexner-related name removal request but would not comment further. It would be the university's second name change, after the John Winthrop House, which bore the name of a Harvard professor and a like-named ancestor, was changed to Winthrop House in July over their connections to slavery.
Tufts University, home to the Tisch Library and the Steve Tisch Sports and Fitness Center, said it continues to look at the matter. The library has moved to clarify that it was not named for Steve, but, in 1992, for his father Preston Tisch, an honored alum. The sports center removed a set of Steve Tisch's handprints during spring break. The university said that was part of a planned renovation.
UCLA's Wasserman Football Center and Stony Brook University's Dubin Family Athletic Performance Center also are named for individuals who appear in the files.
The current clamor bears some resemblance to the controversy that surrounded the wealthy Sackler family's culpability in the deadly opioid crisis, because in both cases the institutions involved had received vast sums from the family.
Some major institutions — including museums in New York and Paris, Tufts and the University of Oxford in England — did remove the Sackler name, but Harvard chose not to. In a 15-page report explaining its 2024 decision, the university said the legacy of Arthur M. Sackler, whose company Purdue Pharma made the potent opioid OxyContin, was “complex, ambiguous and debatable.”
The Epstein-tainted names are on campus buildings also are typically generous donors, as well as alumni.
Wexner, his wife Abigail and their charities have given Ohio State well over $200 million over the years, for example. That included $100 million to benefit the Wexner Medical Center; at least $15 million for the Wexner Center, a contemporary art museum named for Wexner's father, Harry; and $5 million split with an Epstein-run foundation toward construction of the football complex. The Wexners have given another $42 million to the Harvard Kennedy School.
Anne Bergeron, a museum consultant and author who specializes in the ethics of building naming rights in the cultural sector, said universities are serious about their gift acceptance standards while also recognizing that the conduct of individual donors may be judged differently over time.
“It’s no surprise that a lot of these situations arise within the university sphere, because with students — especially the younger generation — there is virtually no tolerance for being associated with anyone who doesn’t represent the best of humanity,” she said
She called this “a moment of reckoning” for universities and said they have to guard against the appearance of a quid pro quo in their building namings.
Michael Oser, a Columbus-area resident, articulated the frustration of some defenders of retaining the Wexner name in a recent letter-to-the-editor of The Columbus Dispatch.
“OSU took the money. Built the buildings. Cut the ribbons. Smiled for the photos There were no formal ‘morality clauses’ attached back then, just gratitude and applause,” he wrote. “Now, years later, some want to play moral referee while the university keeps the cash and the concrete. That’s not accountability. That’s convenience.”
Lauren Barnes, a student in the Kennedy School's master's program leading the effort to remove Wexner's name, said she struggles most days as a survivor of sexual abuse and the mother of a 14-year-old to walk into a building with a name linked to Epstein.
“Thinking about all the children in this world that deserve safety and also all the survivors on campus that have to walk under the Wexner name, I know what that’s like to have my heart race and my hands get sweaty,” she said. “I hate that anyone else has to have that feeling walking under that name and just dealing with it kind of everywhere on campus.”
One protester at Ohio State, Audrey Brill, told a local ABC affiliate that it now “feels gross” thinking of women delivering babies at OSU's Wexner Medical Center “given everything that we’re learning about where this money went” — and she feels removing Wexner's name could help.
Some protesters also want the name of Dr. Mark Landon, a prominent Ohio State gynecologist who received five-figure quarterly payments from Epstein between 2001 and 2005, removed from a visitor’s lounge in the hospital’s new $2 billion, 26-story tower. Landon have said the money was for biotech investment consulting for Wexner, not health care for Epstein or any of his victims.
This story corrects headlines, summary and story to replace “Epstein associates” with individuals “whose names appeared in the Epstein files.”
Casey contributed from Boston.
A sign is displayed on Farkas Hall, which was endowed by Harvard University alum Andrew Farkas, Friday, Jan. 31, 2025, in Cambridge, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)
A sign is seen outside of the Les Wexner Football Complex at the Wood Hayes Athletic Center, Monday, March 30, 2026, in Columbus, Ohio. (AP Photo/Patrick Aftoora-Orsagos)
The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center is seen Monday, March 30, 2026, in Columbus, Ohio. (AP Photo/Patrick Aftoora-Orsagos)
Lauren Barnes, a student in the Kennedy School's master's program, stands in front of the Leslie H. Wexner Building at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., on Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photos/Michael Casey)
The Les Wexner Football Complex at the Wood Hayes Athletic Center is seen Monday, March 30, 2026, in Columbus, Ohio. (AP Photo/Patrick Aftoora-Orsagos)
