The Syrian government and Kurdish-led forces on Monday, December 22, ordered their fighters to cease fire following deadly clashes that came as Turkey’s top diplomat urged the Kurds to integrate into the Syrian army.

At least three people were killed in the clashes, which came ahead of a deadline for implementing a March 10 agreement between Damascus and the Kurds to integrate the SDF –which controls vast swathes of Syria’s oil-rich Northeast – into the state.

State news agency SANA cited the defense ministry as saying that the Syrian army’s general staff had issued “an order to stop targeting the sources of fire.” The US-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces [SDF] meanwhile said they had “issued directives to our forces to cease responding to attacks.”

The two sides had earlier traded blame over who started the clashes.

State news agency SANA said on Monday that “two civilians were killed and eight others were wounded in SDF shelling on districts of Aleppo,” a city that has witnessed heightened tensions and a previous bout of violence between the two sides in October.

The SDF said a woman was killed and 17 civilians wounded on its side by “rocket and tank shelling carried out by Damascus government factions on the Sheikh Maqsud and Ashrafieh neighborhoods in Aleppo.”

Sheikh Maqsud and Ashrafiyeh have remained under the control of Kurdish units linked to the SDF and the Kurds’ domestic security forces, despite a disengagement agreement reached in April with Syria’s new Islamist authorities.

Syria’s interior ministry said Kurdish forces attacked government personnel at joint checkpoints in the two Kurdish-majority neighborhoods. The SDF instead accused “factions affiliated with the interim government” of carrying out an attack on a checkpoint. The defense ministry denied attacking SDF positions, while the Kurdish-led force denied targeting Aleppo neighborhoods.

In October, Syria announced a comprehensive ceasefire with Kurdish forces following deadly clashes in the districts.

Under the March deal between Damascus and the SDF, the Kurds’ civil and military institutions should be integrated into the central government by year end, but differences have held up the deal’s implementation despite international pressure.