Rex Tillerson: US wants Iran out of Syria

A condition of US cooperation with Russia in the Syria arena is the removal of Iranian forces from the country, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says.

“The direct presence of Iranian military forces inside of Syria, they must leave and go home, whether those are Iranian Revolutionary Guard forces or whether those are paid militias, foreign fighters, that Iran has brought into Syria in this battle,” Tillerson says in a wide-ranging news conference.

The other condition, Tillerson says, is that the end result should be a unified Syria with “new leadership” — the removal of the Assad regime.

Israel expressed concerns last month at the terms of a proposed cease-fire in the civil war in southern Syria in part because it left Iranian forces in place. Israel’s deadliest enemies in the region are Iran and its Lebanese ally, the Hezbollah militia, and it wants them removed from Syria as part of any endgame.

— JTA

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