An oil deal between the Syrian forces led by Kurdish and an American company is unacceptable

4th August 2020

1 minute read

Turkey’s foreign ministry reported on Monday that an oil deal between the forces led by Syrian Kurdish and an American company in northeast Syria is unacceptable.

Ankara opposes strongly the Kurdish YPG militia, which represents the principal element of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) supported by the US, and that made the deal with the US oil firm, because of its links to the fighters of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) who have conducted a long revolt in southeast Turkey.

The ministry reported, but without saying what report or reports it was referring to: It was reported in the press that the Syrian Democratic Forces under the control of the PKK/YPG terrorist organization signed a contract with the company Delta Crescent Energy LLC located in the USA.

The ministry announced in a statement that the deal was a clear demonstration of the separatist agenda of the PKK/YPG terrorist organization by seizing the natural resources of the Syrian people, and added that this decision, which cannot be justified by any legitimate motive, is never acceptable.

The secretary of state US, Mike Pompeo, reported to an oil fields deal between the SDF and a US firm during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Thursday. While, the Republican Senator Lindsey Graham reported that SDF General Commander Mazloum Abdi told him that a deal had been signed with an American company to modernize the oil fields in northeastern Syria.

Pompeo declared that the US administration supported the agreement saying: The deal took a little longer … then we had hoped, and now we’re in implementation.

It’s noted that Syria produced almost 380,000 barrels of oil per day and that before the civil war appeared following the repression on protests in 2011, with Iran and Russia supporting the government of President Bashar al-Assad and the United States backing the opposition. Consequently, Damascus lost control of many oil-producing fields in a stretch east of the Euphrates River in Deir al-Zor. Western sanctions have also destroyed the energy industry.

Otherwise, the president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, reported in March that he had asked his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to jointly manage the oil fields in eastern Syria, instead of the SDF.