Syria government to end US presence in country

Stressing its resolve to end the US presence in Syria, Damascus on Monday slammed the US bid to form an armed militia in northern Syria as a flagrant violation to the country's sovereignty, media reports said.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry said the US declaration constitutes a flagrant aggression on the unity and sovereignty of Syria and a violation of international law, Xinhua news agency reported, quoting state news agency SANA.

A day earlier, reports cited the US-led anti-terror coalition as saying that the US is working to form an armed group of 30,000 fighters, which will be under the command of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurds, Arabs and Assyrians supported by the US in northern Syria.

"The US action comes in the framework of its destructive policy in the region to fragment the countries and spur tensions to hinder any solution to the crisis," the Ministry said.

Meanwhile, the Ministry warned that it will regard any Syrian citizen taking part in this US-backed militia as a "traitor" and will be dealt with accordingly.

It called the new US move as a "renewed conspiracy" that will be brought down by the Syrian Army to end any form of presence of the US and its tools in Syria.

The US has been carrying out military operations in Syria since 2014, claiming to be fighting against the Islamic State (IS) terror group.

The SDF captured Raqqa, the de facto capital of IS, late last year, and the Syrian Army captured the eastern city of Deir al-Zour, another IS bastion almost in the same timeframe.

However, the Syrian government said the Raqqa city was still occupied by the US and its fighters on the ground, refusing to acknowledge its liberation from IS.

Also, Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad said in a recent interview that the Kurdish-led groups were the new IS, in another escalation between both parties.

The US move to create a new army in northern Syria has also been criticised by Turkey and Russia.

Turkish Foreign Ministry on Sunday said the US move to establish a border control force in northern Syria is a "unilateral decision".

It condemned this "wrongful approach" and said Turkey was determined and capable to eliminate all sorts of threats.

For his side, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Monday said that the US is not intending on preserving the Syrian sovereignty.

--IANS

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