By: sdf-press.com
The Kurdish-led administration, which controls most of northeastern Syria, has welcomed the U.S. decision to keep some US troops in the war-torn country after the supposed withdrawal, the Reuters news agency reported on February 22.
“We evaluate the White House decision … positively,” Abdulkarim Omar, co-chair of foreign relations in the self-administration, told Reuters.
The White House announced that about 200 US troops will remain in Syria “for period of time” after the so-called full withdrawal of forces. Sarah Sanders, a spokesman for the White House, said that the troops are a “peacekeeping group.”
Omar told Reuters that the self-administration believe that the new decision would protect their region and could encourage European states to keep forces there too. Last week, Senator Lindsey Graham revealed that Washington is indeed asking its allies in Europe to commit hundreds of troops to create a safe-zone in northeastern Syria along the Turkish border.
“This decision may encourage other European states, particularly our partners in the international coalition against terrorism, to keep forces in the region … I believe that keeping a number of American troops and a larger number of (other) coalition troops, with air protection, will play a role in securing stability and protecting the region too,” Omar said.
The recently announced U.S. decision met with skepticism from Russia. On February 22, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Moscow is closely following the evolution of Washington’s stance on the potential withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria and believes that the situation is unclear for the time being.
“Sometimes we hear different statements from different agencies [in Washington], so we are watching with great interest and attention the evolution of the United States’ stance on the issue and analyzing all these statements,” the Russian news agency TASS quoted Peskov as saying.
It remains unclear where these 200 US troops will be deployed. The U.S. may attempt to use them to isolate the Kurdish-controlled areas from Turkish and Syrian forces, therefore creating a quasi-state in northeastern Syria.
