Syrian War Would End Very Quickly If US Pulled Out - Virginia State Senator

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 06th June, 2019) The Syrian war would end very fast and the people would start rebuilding their country if US forces left the war-torn middle Eastern nation, Virginia State Senator Richard Black told Sputnik.

"If we'd [the United States] pulled out, I think the war would end very quickly and Syria would be reunited, stabilized and people could begin rebuilding in earnest," Black said.

US President Donald Trump announced in December that the United States would withdraw some 2,000 troops from Syria, but Black said none have left the country.

Syria, he added, would have ended the war if the United States and its allies did not intervene and establish at least a dozen bases in northeast Syria and one in At-Tanf in the southern part of the country.

Black, who personally met with Syrian President Bashar Assad twice in 2016 and in 2018, said during his second visit the war "was going much more favorably to Syria."

Although he believes the war will be settled on the field of battle, Black said it us always worth negotiating with the other side and Russia Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has been key in ensuring the talks continue.

"I am sure that there would continue to be talks. I think Foreign Minister Lavrov has been enormously helpful. The man is brilliant," Black said. "He is in every respect a diplomat. He does not just bluster and bully and make bellicose pronouncements. He is a very sophisticated man."

Black also observed that US interference also strengthened the Kurdish minority at the expense of the remainder of the Syrian population.

"We set up this Kurdish-led government in northeast Syria. We gave all of the oil and much of the agricultural produce that should be providing heat and food for all of the people of Syria and we shut it off and gave it to this small Kurdish minority," Black said.

The United States, Black argued, helped establish a "sort of government" for the Kurds in Syria. The Kurdish minority, which represents only 10 percent of the Syrian population, now "governs" over the other 90 percent of the country that includes Arabs and Christians, Black said.

Black stressed that one thing he is quite disdainful of is the proposed talks to revise the Syrian constitution.

"I have read the Syrian constitution in detail. In three places it guarantees religious freedom, it guarantees women's rights, it guarantees the rule of law. Frankly, it is a very admirable constitution," Black stated. "I find it very ironic that one of the countries that shouting the loudest that Syria has to change its constitution is Saudi Arabia. Now Saudi Arabia has no constitution... and yet they are calling for Syria, pounding on the table, demanding that Syria changes its constitution. All that I can figure is that they want to take away the religious freedom that people have in Syria."

Before the war, Black added, people in Syria had enormous religious freedom.

"I was very pleased when I went in 2018 to see that so many of the Christian churches that had been burned out, the religious artifacts defiled, crosses ripped down - they have been rebuilt," he said.

Black said he told Assad he was pleased at how the Syrian government had nicely rebuilt the Saint Mary Church of the Holy Belt - where there is a fragment of the belt worn by the Virgin Mary, the mother of God. The state senator added that the Syrian government has also been very active in rebuilding mosques as well.