US FIRM’S OIL DEAL WITH SDF AS ‘NULL AND VOID’, SYRIA FM SAYS

Mon 03 August 2020:

Syria’s foreign ministry said on Sunday that an American oil company had signed an agreement with Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) who control northeastern oilfields in what it described as an illegal deal aimed at “stealing” Syria’s crude.

A ministry statement, published on state media, did not name the firm involved in the deal with SDF, an alliance that seized swathes of north and east Syria from ISIS with US help.

A US senator and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had referred to an oil fields deal between the SDF and a US firm during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Thursday.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said during the committee hearing that SDF General Commander Mazloum Abdi informed him that a deal had been signed with an American company to “modernize the oil fields in northeastern Syria,” and asked Pompeo whether the administration was supportive of it.

“We are,” Pompeo responded during the hearing streamed live by PBS. “The deal took a little longer … than we had hoped, and now we’re in implementation.”

Damascus “condemns in the strongest terms the agreement signed between al-Qasd militia (SDF) and an American oil company to steal Syria’s oil under the sponsorship and support of the American administration,” the Syrian statement said. “This agreement is null and void and has no legal basis.”

Damascus lost control of most oil producing fields in a stretch east of the Euphrates River in Deir al-Zor. Western sanctions have also hit the energy industry.

US President Donald Trump has shown an acute interest in the oilfields of northeast Syria. Despite announcing a US military pullback from the region in December 2018, Trump also pledged that a small number of US forces would remain “where they have oil”.

Trump faced congressional criticism for the pullback, with some prominent Republicans saying the administration was abandoning Kurdish allies who had been instrumental to defeating ISIL (ISIS) in the region.

Critics also said the move opened the region to further influence from Russia, whose military support has been key to al-Assad taking back large swaths of the country. 

The Pentagon said late last year that oilfield revenues would go to the SDF. 

The alliance’s makeup largely consists of fighters from the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) – a group considered “terrorists” by Turkey – and smaller groups of Arab, Turkmen and Armenian fighters.

Following Trump’s pullback announcement, Ankara launched a military operation into northern Syria with the stated aim of removing the SDF from the region bordering Turkey and creating a so-called “safe zone” where millions of the Syrian refugees it hosted could be resettled.

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