US To Review Oil Sales From Areas Protected By Its Forces In Northeast Syria - Official

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 24th October, 2019) The United States will review and monitor how oil from fields protected by American troops in northeast Syria is sold, a senior US administration official said during a conference call on Wednesday.

"The President has stated that we are going to have a residual force in the region to protect areas that in part contain or hold the oil fields as well as the base in At Tanf in southern Syria...As far as how the oil will be sold and that sort of thing, that's something that we'll certainly look into and we'll monitor going forward and we'll keep a close eye on that," the official said.

On Monday, US President Donald Trump said the United States is prepared to help Kurds in northeast Syria obtain revenue from oil assets. He added that the region is not oil rich, "but everybody is fighting for whatever there is."

The secretary of the Syrian opposition movement Popular Diplomacy, Mahmoud Afandi, told Sputnik on Tuesday that the US would likely leave some troops in the town of Rmelan in al-Hasakah Governorate in northeast Syria to maintain a military base there and continue to control the oil-rich area.

On October 9, Turkey launched Operation Peace Spring in northeast Syria to clear the area of Kurdish and Islamic State (banned in Russia) fighters. The United States and Turkey on October 17 reached an agreement on a 120-hour ceasefire in northeast Syria to allow for the withdrawal of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG).

As the five-day ceasefire ended, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin reached a deal late on Tuesday to pull the Kurdish fighters back and establish joint patrols in the safe zone in northeast Syria along the Turkish border.