Assad's Aide Blasts US-Kurdish Oil Deal As 'Robbery,' Another Blow To Syrian Economy

Assad's Aide Blasts US-Kurdish Oil Deal as 'Robbery,' Another Blow to Syrian Economy

An oil deal between Kurds and the United States is nothing but a robbery, which would deliver an additional blow to the conflict-hit Syrian economy, Bouthaina Shaaban, a political and media adviser to the Syrian president, told Sputnik in an interview

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 30th September, 2020) An oil deal between Kurds and the United States is nothing but a robbery, which would deliver an additional blow to the conflict-hit Syrian economy, Bouthaina Shaaban, a political and media adviser to the Syrian president, told Sputnik in an interview.

Back in August, US State Secretary Mike Pompeo told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that an American oil firm has secured a deal to modernize oil fields controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. US media reported that the company was Delta Crescent Energy. Earlier in September, President Donald Trump said that the US might work out a deal on Syrian oil with local Kurds in northeastern Syria and withdraw the troops that guard the reserves.

"This deal is a deal for stealing the Syrian oil. There is no other name for it. It is not a deal, it is a robbery of the Syrian oil that is the right of the Syrian people to use and to take," Shaaban said.

"Definitely that has a bad implication on the Syrian economy because it is depriving the Syrian people of their natural wealth and of their natural fortune," she added.

The official recalled that such dealings were a direct result of occupation of northern Syria.

"The Syrian government is trying its best and taking measures to get rid of the occupiers. Because this is the only way in order to restore our land and our fortunes and our resources and our economy," she concluded.