US to seek PKK's removal from Syria in new alliance with Turkey
Rokna: The Trump administration is reportedly seeking to diminish and eventually eliminate the presence in Syria of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), citing the group’s terrorist ties, in a bid to forge new collaboration in Syria with Turkey, which also illegally occupies the terror-ravaged Arab state.
“We want to see the PKK cadre leave Syria,” said Washington’s Special Representative for Syria Engagement Ambassador James Jeffrey during an interview with the Western-funded and Jordan-based Syria Direct news outlet, as cited in a Friday report by Middle East Monitor.
The US official went on to acknowledge that PKK’s presence in Syria “is a major reason why there is tension with Turkey in the northeast,” further insisting that “we want to reduce that tension.”
Elaborating on Washington’s objectives for the move, Jeffrey claimed the primary reason was that “in all other areas other than the northeast, we have very close coordination with Turkey on the Syrian situation.”
He then added, “Even in the northeast, as I said, we have an agreement with Turkey in terms of military [movement].”
The development came as the occupying US military had allied itself with PKK-linked Kurdish militant groups such as the Peoples’ Protection Units (YPG) and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), arming and assisting them in their persisting efforts to topple the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad and undermine the presence of his strategic allies such as Iran and Russia.
Turkey, however, persistently opposed to the US alliance with the Kurdish militants due to their affiliation with the PKK, a designated terrorist group and Kurdish separatist movement which has carried out numerous terror attacks in Turkey over the decades.
Jeffrey further claimed that Washington was thus seeking to calm Ankara’s fears of a strengthened PKK, while assuring its NATO ally that the US aims to encourage and help build a “civilian administration” in northeastern Syria instead of a solely military one.
“There has to be a civilian administration because, as you know, the [Syrian] regime retreated from that area back in 2013,” he proclaimed.
US policy against Syria, Iran won’t change under Biden
The American diplomat also reiterated the need for what he referred to as a “political solution to the Syrian crisis that reflects the will of the UN Security Council Resolution 2254.”
While insisting that such a political solution “is absolutely necessary,” he slammed Russia and the Damascus government for refusing to work out a long-term deal with opposition forces, many of which were engaged in terrorist acts to topple President Assad while receiving support and funds from Israel-allied Western governments and despotic Arab regimes in the region.
Jeffrey further insisted that US foreign policy against the Syrian government will not change in case Joe Biden from the Democratic Party succeeds the hawkish President Donald Trump despite speculations to the contrary.
Dismissing such speculations, Jeffrey also emphasized that Washington’s current policy “will continue” and that “I see no change in our troop presence, I see no change in our sanctions policy, I see no change in our demand that Iran leave Syria, be it with a Biden administration or Trump one.”
The Syrian government has denounced in the strongest terms the agreement inked to plunder the country’s natural resources, including Syrian oil and gas, with the sponsorship of the administration of US President Donald Trump.
The US president has more than once acknowledged that American military forces are in Syria for the Arab country's oil.
source: PressTV
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