Syrian opposition: US has not achieved its targets, cannot afford to leave Syria

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – A member of the Syrian opposition has said the United States “cannot afford” to leave Syria because it has not achieved its targets in the region, following President Donald Trump’s recent announcement of a troop withdrawal.

Speaking to Reuters on Friday, Nasr al-Hariri, Head of the Syrian Negotiation Commission (SNC), an opposition group to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, said America “is not capable of withdrawing its fighters from Syria” because the Islamic State (IS) “is not finished.”

“If we don’t treat the reasons that birthed [IS], then these would be temporary victories like shifting sands that disappear here and pop up somewhere else,” he said, noting that “fighting [IS] is at the top of American priorities.”

Washington has supported the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), of which the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) make a majority, in the war against IS in Syria for years.

US support for the YPG has helped liberate large swaths of territory the extremist group used to occupy in northern and eastern Syria, including IS’ former stronghold of Raqqa. The US has also deployed about 2,000 troops in the country, according to Reuters.

Hariri’s comments were related to Trump’s remarks earlier this month when he said at the White House, “I want to get out, I want to bring the troops back home, I want to start rebuilding our nation.”

The opposition official also explained that any solution to the years-long Syrian crisis would require “international consensus that begins with a US-Russian agreement.”

Russia has supported Assad since 2015, turning the wave of the civil war in the Syrian President’s favor.

“We know, and the Syrian people know, that when the US seriously wants to reach a political solution and put real weight against the table of negotiations, it can make a change,” Hariri said.