Syria has accused President Donald Trump of stealing the country’s oil after U.S. officials confirmed that a U.S. company there was allowed to operate in fields under the control of a Pentagon-backed militia.
Delivered in comments Tuesday and sent to Newsweek through the Syrian Permanent Mission to the United Nations, Representative Bashar al-Jaafari told the UN Security Council that “the US Occupying Force, in full view of the United Nations and the international community, has taken a new step towards Syria’s natural resources plunder, including Syrian oil and gas “through the recent founding of a company called” Crescent Delta Energy. “
This company, “sponsored and supported by the US administration, has signed a contract with the so-called ‘Syrian Democratic Forces / SDF’ militia, an agent of the US occupation forces in northeastern Syria, with the aim of stealing oil from Syria and the Syrian state and Syrian people are deprived of the basic income needed to improve the humanitarian situation, provide for need of existence and reconstruction, “he added.
The Syrian diplomat notes that Trump had announced his intentions earlier, as in a press conference at the end of October, in which the president said he “sought to make a deal with an ExxonMobil as one of our major companies” to oil in To take Syria. Trump has publicly confessed “I love oil!” and that he remained militarily involved in Syria “only for the sake of oil”, even though his officials appointed the main focus of the Pentagon was the fight against the militant group Islamic State (ISIS).
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“The removal of Daesh fighters, weapons and explosives remains a top priority as Daesh continues to carry out attacks on innocent civilians and our partners throughout Iraq and northeastern Syria,” the US-led coalition said, using an Arab acronym for ISIS, sent in a press release to Newsweek on Thursday.
But the same day, Trump reiterated his opinion on Syria’s mission: “As you know, we are in Syria after almost nothing, except that we save the oil. But we will have some kind of deal with the Kurds. “We’re gone, but we’ve saved the oil.”
DELIL SOULEIMAN / AFP / Getty Images
News of an oil trade between the US and the SDF, a mostly Kurdish force that came to the fore with the fight against ISIS, first surfaced last month when Secretary of State Mike Pompeo testified before the Senate. South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said he had spoken to SDF Commander-in-Chief Mazloum Abdi, whose forces “signed an agreement with a U.S. oil company to modernize the oil fields in northeastern Syria.”
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Asked if the US was in favor of that arrangement, the top US diplomat said, “We are.”
“The deal took a little longer than we had hoped, and now that we’re in execution, it could be very powerful,” Pompeo said.
The next day, Al-Monitor citing anonymous sources who revealed the name of the company in question as “Delta Crescent Energy, LLC,” which had the full support of the White House in its dealings in Syria. Politico later confirmed the name based on multiple sources familiar with the deal.
The subject came up again during a press release last Wednesday with James Jeffrey, the US Special Representative for Syria and special envoy for the campaign against ISIS. He declined to discuss the details of contracts for private companies as a matter of policy, but said the US “has a responsibility to consider whether licenses should be issued to allow U.S. companies to carry out economic activities that could otherwise be sanctioned.”
“That is something we have done, including in this case,” he said, denying that the US was “involved in the commercial decisions of our local partners in northeastern Syria.”
“We have done nothing but license related to this business,” he added. “Syrian oil is for the Syrian people, and we remain committed to the unity and territorial integrity of Syria. The United States Government does not own, control or manage any oil resources. You have the position of the President over it. preserving the oil fields. We will not go over that again. “
The US has long been accused of interfering in the Middle East and elsewhere in purchasing or controlling energy resources. Comments sent by the UN mission to Syria Newsweek also included an indictment that the U.S. administration had allowed U.S. oil companies, whose work was overseen by former U.S. vice president Dick Cheney, to extract Syrian oil from the occupied Syrian Golan in
a flagrant violation of the relevant Security Council and General Assembly resolutions. “
DELIL SOULEIMAN / AFP / Getty Images
Shortly after the Trump administration announced last year that it was repositioning U.S. troops to prioritize control over oil, News Week quoted leading observers as expressing their concern about the optics and legality of the decision, and about arrangements reached between the SDF to supply oil to the Syrian government. The complex comparison is one of many made up of Syria’s multi-sided conflict, now in its 10th year.
Washington initially went into the Syrian civil war in favor of an insurgent that erupted in the wake of a 2011 uprising, meeting with a government official. Support from the US and regional partners for the increasingly Islamist insurgency eventually waned, as backing the SDF against ISIS became a priority. But Turkey is holding back the opposition and has mobilized it against both Syrian government and SDF troops.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, backed by Russia and Iran and accused by the West of war crimes, now controls most of the country and has vowed to retake its entirety through diplomacy or violence. In his last speech against cabinet members, the Syrian leader accused Israel, Turkey and the US of trying to “implement one plan with the aim of tearing Syria apart and plundering its wealth.”
Both Moscow and Tehran have reiterated Damascus’ calls for an immediate withdrawal of US troops responsible for the loss of an estimated $ 40 million in annual oil revenues. An even higher cost has been created by US sanctions seeking to overthrow the Syrian government.
“The United States and its allies are united in continuing to put pressure on Assad and his enablers until there is a peaceful, political solution to the conflict. Assad and his foreign protectors know the clock is ticking for action,” it said. state share in a press release Thursday. “In the meantime, the United States will continue to impose costs on everyone, everywhere that hinders a peaceful political solution to the Syrian conflict.”
