Syria condemns deal between Kurds and US oil firm as ‘theft’

Syria condemns an agreement between Kurdish-led forces in the country’s northeast and a US oil company, describing it as “theft” and an “affront to national sovereignty.”

The foreign ministry denounced “an agreement signed by the SDF militia and a US oil company to steal Syrian oil… supported by the US administration,” in a statement quoted by the official SANA news agency.

The SDF is the Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish-led paramilitary alliance that backs a semi-autonomous administration in northeastern Syria and controls the country’s biggest oilfields.

Senior US officials have confirmed an agreement to “modernize” the fields, without naming the US company or providing other details.

The Syrian foreign ministry’s statement decries “an agreement between… thieves who steal and thieves who buy.”

It also decried “the hostile US position towards Syria, the theft of the Syrian people’s riches, and its hindrance of the state’s reconstruction efforts.”

— AFP