Military cooperation between France and Russia is being discussed while France's Ambassador to Russia, Sylvie Bermann, has expressed her hope that the Russian President would be able to persuade his Turkish counterpart to halt hostilities in Northeastern Syria.

Emmanuel Dupuy, President of the Institute for Prospects and Security in Europe (IPSE) explains how military cooperation between Paris and Moscow can develop in the light of recent events.

Sputnik: What are the real reasons for the presence of French Special Forces in Syria? Was it not, among other things, to prevent what is happening, namely the Turks from attacking Kurdish strongholds in Northern Syria?

Emmanuel Dupuy: The presence of the French Special Forces has nothing to do with that. France doesn’t recognise the Turkish operation, which questions the fight against Daesh*. The French military is not there to fight Turkey, but to eradicate the last Daesh* centres of resistance.

I’m sure that France will redeploy its troops in Syria. I am afraid that due to the lack of American support (since the US decided to withdraw from Syria), France, like other countries with Special Forces, in particular, Germany, will be forced to relocate their troops.

Imagine a situation: a coalition helicopter with French special forces on board is in the crosshairs of Turkish troops in the Kobanî region, and the French are forced to fight back. If this happened, then the two NATO countries would end up face to face shooting at each other in “self-defence.”

Sputnik: What options can the French military have in this case? Retreat to the territory of neighbouring Iraq?

Emmanuel Dupuy: I don’t know. If there is no active effort to stop Turkey’s advance at the international level, the French may end up between two warring factions. France will have to follow the course of events, that it to quietly observe Kurds being killed and allow Turkey to “dictate its conditions.” I see no option other than do what the Americans did. This is not a desirable option, but a forced one.

Sputnik: What’s your take on France’s appeal to Russia?

Emmanuel Dupuy: I see this positively. This confirms the need to more closely join forces with Russia in creating new security schemes for Europe.

Russia can be an example in this regard. We hope that a joint Franco-German initiative on joining the Astana process will be implemented. French diplomacy plans that.

Sputnik: Some may be surprised by France’s expectations from Russia. Recall that, in addition to the fact that Western countries didn’t want to participate in the Astana process (which you’ve mentioned), they tried to make sure that these negotiations failed. Recall also the hostile statements by the French Foreign Ministry and the Élysée regarding Moscow, when Russia started participating in hostilities in Syria. At that time, France spoke of possible sanctions against Russia. And today Paris is calling Moscow for help.

Emmanuel Dupuy: The strategic context is changing a lot. Emmanuel Macron is aware of this. He’s realised that it’s time to stop the erroneous or deceptive strategy proposed by some French high-ranking officials. They argued that we should support those who are not necessarily stronger at the scene. It is not worth reminding that the Syrian government, regardless of whether we accept it or not, is gradually regaining control over part of the country’s territory.

But now we are faced with the fact that those whom we had to support in the fight against Daesh* (and until now we claimed that we were in Syria to fight it) are not calling us for help. They know we cannot defend them. They call for help from Bashar al-Assad, whom we initially considered a source of destabilisation of the country.

We are trapped by a paradox, which reflects the essence of our inaction. We have no choice. We should side with the one who can influence the Turkish President. This is not about the United States, not about Germany, not about us, the French, but about Russia.

 

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201910191077088248-france-prepares-to-r...

The reported destruction of the base comes amid a redeployment of American troops to Iraq that was announced on the same day by Defence Secretary Mark Esper.

The US Air Force has delivered airstrikes on the Al-Qulaib military base in the north-eastern Syrian province of Al-Hasakah, which American forces themselves occupied not long ago, Syria’s SANA news agency reported. The base had a runway that was used to receive military shipments from cargo planes and helicopters.

The base had just recently been abandoned by US troops due to their withdrawal to Iraqamid a Turkish offensive in northern Syria, which has already resulted in an incident where American soldiers nearly got shelled by their Turkish NATO allies.

While the US Defence Department has not commented on the news, the reported bombing of the abandoned base could be part of measures that are being taken to prevent equipment remaining there from being seized by Russian or Syrian forces. Previously, US troops destroyed a radar in the same Al-Hasakah province that they apparently couldn't pack together in time, and what's left of a military camp in Dadat near the Syrian city of Manbij.

 

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201910201077102513-us-forces-reported...

 

On 23 October 2019, President Putin’s Special Envoy in the Middle East, Mikhail Bogdanov, asserted that all Syrian oil and gas sites must return under the control of the Syrian Arab Republic.

President Bashar al-Assad had already granted concessions to Russian companies, which have so far not been able to exploit them.

During the negotiations preceding the Turkish "Operation Peace Spring," the United States had insisted that the Rojava oil fields be operated by US or Israeli companies.

The war against Syria was planned by the United States as early as 2003 (Syrian Acountability Act), that is, at a time when its underground riches were still unknown and the competing Qatar and Iran pipelines were not yet on the map. It is therefore a mistake to assume that this war, like many others, was driven by oil interests.

Nevertheless, at the beginning of the war, the "Friends of Syria" learned about the three-dimensional explorations secretly conducted by the Norwegian company Sagex (since then bought by the multinationl Schlumberger). Germany and the United Arab Emirates, as co-chairs, were then charged with handing out contracts to those states that joined in the war against Syria.

It remains to be seen whether the reported outcome of the explorations is accurate. If confirmed, Syria is sitting on gas reserves comparable to those of Qatar, which is likely to cause a problem with her two allies and major gas producers: Russia and Iran.

 

Read more:

https://www.voltairenet.org/article208090.html

Commenting on US Defence Secretary Mark T. Esper's statement that a group of US troops will remain in eastern Syria, allegedly to prevent Daesh from accessing the oil fields, a Russian Defense Ministry spokesman said the statement should not be a surprise.

In a statement, the chief spokesman for the Russian Defence Ministry, Igor Konashenkov, noted that the US' stated goal of protecting Syrian oil fields from Daesh* fighters could not be farther from the truth.

“What Washington does now – the capture and holding under its armed control of oil fields in Eastern Syria is, simply speaking, an international state banditism,” he said, adding that Syrian oil reserves and other mineral resources belong solely to the Syrian Arab Republic, not to Daesh terrorists or to “American protectors from Daesh terrorists”.

“Neither international law, nor the American legislation itself can justify the US troops’ goal to guard Syrian hydrocarbon reserves from Syria itself and its people,” the statement reads.

Citing intelligence obtained via Russian Defence Ministry surveillance satellites, both before and after the Daesh defeat north of the Euphrates, Syrian oil was being actively extracted and smuggled to other countries, while being guarded by US soldiers.

The oil was smuggled in tanker truck convoys, guarded both by US servicemen and the mercenaries of private military contractors (PMCs), the ministry spokesman said.

“Meanwhile, Washington imposed sanctions on shipping hydrocarbons to Syria, which spans not only US companies, but everyone else,” the statement says.

Despite that, oil extraction is being conducted using equipment provided by "leading Amercian corporations", Konashenkov said.

In case of an attack on convoys, the US military immediately calls upon special operations forces and its air force for protection, he added.

According to the statement, oil extraction was conducted by a US-controlled company, created under the so-called “Autonomous Administration of East Syria”.

The smuggling revenue went through intermediary companies to US intelligence agency and PMC bank accounts, he said.

“Considering one barrel of Syrian oil costs $38, the monthly revenue of this ‘private enterprise’ of US intelligence agencies is more than $30 million,” the statement reads. “For such a constant flow of cash, free of state control and taxes, Pentagon and Langley management will be ready to guard Syrian oil wells from ‘hidden Daesh cells’ indefinitely.”

On 9 October, Turkey announced its 'Operation Peace Spring' which aims to drive Kurdish militias and remaining Daesh fighters away from the border. On 13 October, US Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper said the US will withdraw all of its force of 1,000 soldiers from northeastern Syria. On 25 October, Esper said the US would maintain a "reduced presence" in Syria, citing concerns about Daesh terrorists taking control of the oil fields. His words contradict the Trump administration, which announced earlier this year that Daesh had been 100 percent defeated.

''The United States will maintain a reduced presence in Syria to deny ISIS access to oil revenue as we reposition for the next phase of the Defeat-ISIS campaign,'' Esper said.

*Daesh (ISIS/ISIL) is an international terrorist group which is banned in Russia

 

 

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201910261077152862-international-stat...

 

The oil of course belongs to the Syrian people... but...

 

Read from top. Meanwhile:

 

 

 

German MPs have demanded that the government expel US forces stationed in Germany. MPs argue that their presence only serves the purposes of the US illegal wars in the Middle East and stokes tensions with Moscow.

Lawmakers from the opposition Left Party have tabled a motion calling on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government to immediately stop financing the American military presence in the country and to annul a 1990 treaty allowing US soldiers to be deployed on German soil in the first instance.

“More than 35,000 US soldiers are stationed in Germany, more than in any other European land,” the document, published on the Bundestag’s website, points out, adding that American military bases are used to further Washington’s “policy of war in the Middle East.” The lawmakers particularly expressed their outrage over the fact that the German bases are used “in the continuing illegal practice of targeted US assassinations in Pakistan and Afghanistan,” apparently referring to the American use of strike drones.

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/471883-german-demand-us-troops-leave/

The Russian military described the US scheme as nothing less than "international state banditism."

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The Russian Defense Ministry published satellite intelligence images proving that oil from Syria was sent abroad under the guard of US servicemen before and after the defeat of the Daesh terrorists, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said Saturday.

The ministry spokesman said that "the space intelligence images showed that oil was actively extracted and massively exported for processing outside Syria, under the reliable protection of US troops, before and after the defeat of the Daesh* terrorists."

 

 

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201910261077154752-russian-military-r...

 

 

Read from top.

What’s been discussed for quite a while now in other parts of the world is apparently coming across to observers in the United States, following a series of unnerving statements from US President Trump.

The No.1 priority of the Trump administration’s Syria policy is seizing the country’s oil resources, wrote Benjamin Hart in a New York Magazine article published on Friday.

Hart writes that “there is one thing about the chaotic situation that does seem to preoccupy the president: oil. Precious, precious oil. Over the past weeks, through tweets and public statements, he has made it clear that he considers the protection of it a very high priority.”

Donald Trump has nonchalantly bragged about “taking control” of Syria’s oil in the past weeks. He brought up the subject on Friday again, tweeting: “When these pundit fools who have called the Middle East wrong for 20 years ask what we are getting out of the deal, I simply say, THE OIL, AND WE ARE BRINGING OUR SOLDIERS BACK HOME, ISIS SECURED!”

 

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201910271077159031-its-time-to-admit-...

 

 

Read from top.

In Lebanon, banks have been closed for 10 days. Cash dispensers are empty. A wave of protests is sweeping the country. All roads are blocked. One can only take back roads, if known. Beirut airport is inaccessible.

In Iraq, protests have resumed, particularly in Shia areas. In the past month, the crackdown left more than 200 people dead. As in the case of Lebanon since 1943, Iraq since 2005 has a constitution which distributes power according to religious affiliation. This system was designed by the colonizers to maintain these countries in a state of dependency despite their official independence.

In Syria, provisioning via Lebanon has been suspended due to the interruption of the Beirut-Damascus axis. However, the country is self-sufficient in terms of food and commercial traffic with Turkey has been restored, with new products already reaching the markets in Aleppo.

 

Read more:

https://www.voltairenet.org/article208128.html

Damascus, Moscow, Ankara and others have repeatedly criticised US efforts to continue to hold onto oil-rich areas of Syria, saying such actions are in blatant violation of international law.

The United States is looking to illegally separate territories on the eastern bank of the Euphrates and create a separate, illegal, quasi-state there, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, speaking at the Paris Peace Forum on Tuesday.

"On the eastern bank of the Euphrates River, they are doing everything possible to create the structure for a quasi-state, and are asking the Gulf States for major investments in order to create a local administration on the basis of the Syrian Democratic Forces, the Kurds - the YPG People's Protection Units and others, with the clear intention of breaking this piece of territory off from Syria, and controlling the oil fields located there," Lavrov said.

At the same time, Lavrov accused the US of prohibiting its allies from investing in Syria's reconstruction.

"When it comes to Syria's reconstruction, we, together with the Syrian government, support inviting everyone [to participate], in creating conditions for the modernisation of infrastructure and the return of refugees, so that the country can return to a normal life. The United States categorically denies the need for this, and prohibit its allies - NATO, the European Union, countries of the region, from investing in any projects in the territories controlled by the Syrian government," the foreign minister said.

Last Year, Syrian authorities estimated that between $200 and $400 billion in investment, and up to a decade would be needed to rebuild Syria following the conflict. The US and its European allies have refused to commit to funding reconstruction efforts, although many European countries are facing major social tensions, due to the influx of Syrian refugees into Europe.

 

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/world/201911121077287751-us-wants-to-create-ille...

 

 

Read from top.

The Insoluble Contradictions of Daesh and the PKK/YPG

 

by Thierry Meyssan

We only know what is happening in the Levant through the war propaganda of the country in which we live. We ignore other points of view and, more importantly, how our armies have behaved. To disentangle the true from the false, historians will have to examine the available documents. However, what the Western military literature tells us contradicts the statements of politicians and the narrative in the newspapers. It is only by becoming aware of the existence of the Pentagon’s strategy since 2001 that we will be able to understand what really happened and why such contradictions are occurring today.

We do not understand what is happening in northern Syria because we believe a priori that there was a fight between the evil Daesh jihadists and the kind Kurds of the PKK/YPG. That is absolutely not true. This struggle existed only to limit their respective territories or out of ethnic solidarity, never for ideological or religious reasons.

On the other hand, we do not see the role played by Donald Trump. As the press spends its time insulting the President-elect of the United States, it cannot be counted on to analyze and understand its policy in the broader Middle East. However, it has a clear guideline: the end of the Rumsfeld/Cebrowski doctrine, a legacy of 9/11. In doing so, he opposes his generals - all trained under the Bush Jr and Obama mandates to govern the world - and the Western European political class.

To understand what is happening, we must take the facts upstream and not downstream. Let us return to the plan drawn up by the Pentagon at the beginning of the Bush administration in 2001 and revealed, two days after the attacks of September 11, by Colonel Ralph Peters in Parameters [1], the review of the US Army: the "remodelling" of the world, starting with the broader Middle East. This plan was confirmed a month later by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who appointed its main designer, Admiral Arthur Cebrowski, Director of the Force Transformation Office. It was explained by his assistant, Thomas Barnett, in 2005 in The Pentagon’s New Map [2]. And illustrated by the same Ralph Peters when he published the map in the Armed Forces Journal in 2006 for the first episode: what the broader Middle East was to become [3]. Given the difficulties encountered in the field, it was the subject of an amendment published by a Pentagon researcher, Robin Wright, in the Sunday supplement of the New York Times [4] in 2013.

According to these documents, five States were to be dismembered into fourteen entities: Syria and Iraq, Yemen, Libya and Saudi Arabia.

With regard to Syria and Iraq, these two States were to be divided into four. The map published in 2013 outlines a "Sunnistan" and a "Kurdistan", both straddling the two current states. The following year, the first was created by Daesh, the second by the YPG. At the time this map was published, Daesh was just one of hundreds of tiny anti-Syrian terrorist organizations; while the PYG was a pro-government militia whose fighters’ salaries were paid by the Syrian Arab Republic. There was nothing on the ground to predict the creation of the Caliphate and Rojava wanted by the Pentagon.

The Turkish Kurdish daily Özgür Gündem [5] published the decision statement of the meeting during which the CIA prepared the way Daesh would invade Iraq from Raqqa. This document indicates that Masrour "Jomaaa" Barzani, then Head of Intelligence of the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government, attended this planning meeting on 1 June 2014 in Amman, Jordan. He became Prime Minister of the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government last July.

It is important to note that, according to Robin Wright’s map, US "Kurdistan" should include northeastern Syria (like French "Kurdistan" of 1936) and the Kurdish region of Iraq (which the French had not considered).

The support of the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government for Daesh’s invasion of Iraq is indisputable: it allowed jihadists to massacre Kurds of Yazi religion in Sinjar and enslave their women. Those who were rescued were rescued by Turkish and Syrian Kurds who had come specially to assist them under the mocking eye of the peshmergas, the Iraqi Kurdish soldiers.

Daesh committed many atrocities, imposing its reign through terror. Il carried out a religious cleansing against the Yazidi Kurds, Assyrian Christians, Shia Arabs etc. These "rebels" have received financial and military assistance from the CIA, the Pentagon and at least 17 states, as reported and documented by the Bulgarian daily newspapers Trud [6] and the Croatian Jutarnji list [7]. With trained staff in Fort Benning (USA), Daesh collected taxes and opened public services until it became a "state" although no one recognized it as such.

We do not know how the PKK transformed itself in 2005 from a pro-Soviet Marxist-Leninist political party into a pro-Atlantic libertarian and environmentalist militia. And even less how the Syrian YPG operated its transformation in 2014. It came under the operational command of Turkish officers from the PKK and NATO. Depending on the side of the Turkish-Syrian border, the PKK-YPG is internationally qualified differently. If it is positioned in Turkey, it is "a terrorist organization", but if it is in Syria, it becomes "a political party opposed to the dictatorship". Yet until 2014, it did not see a dictatorship in Syria. It was fighting for the defence of the Syrian Arab Republic and the retention of President Bashar al-Assad in power.

The YPG has respected the laws of war and has not committed atrocities comparable to those of Daesh, but it has not hesitated to ethnically clean up the north-east of Syria to create the "Rojava", which constitutes a crime against humanity. It despoiled and expelled hundreds of thousands of Assyrians and Arabs. It thought it was fighting for its people, but it was only making the Pentagon’s dreams come true. To do so, it publicly benefited from the Pentagon’s armament, as well as the British military weekly Jane’s [8] and the Italian daily Il Manifesto [9] have shown, and France, as François Hollande has revealed. Rojava did not have time to merge with the Kurdish region of Iraq.

After the fall of the Caliphate, among other things under the blows of the PKK/PYG, the latter asked the Damascus government for permission to cross the lines of the Syrian Arab army to rescue the North-West Kurds threatened by the Turkish army. Permission was granted.. But when the PKK/YPG moved, it was transporting fugitive Daesh officers who were arrested by the Syrian Arab Republic.

These documents and facts do not tell us which protagonists are right or wrong, that is another matter. But on the ground, it is impossible to be both against Daesh and for the PKK/YPG without falling into irreconcilable contradictions.

Donald Trump’s actions consisted in destroying the pseudo-states manufactured by the Pentagon: the Caliphate and the Rojava; this does not mean the end of Daesh or the end of the PKK/YPG.

Thierry Meyssan

Translation 
Roger Lagassé

 

Read more:

https://www.voltairenet.org/article208284.html

 

 

 

Read from top.

 

 

See also:

https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201911131077300072-us-to-keep-control...

 

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) – The United States intends to retain control over the oil fields in Syria’s northeast, despite scaling down its military presence in the area, US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday.

“We have our troops out of there, and we will be bringing a lot of them back home, but again we are keeping the oil”, Trump said at the beginning of his meeting with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The statement comes after a US military convoy was reportedly positioned near several oil deposits in north-eastern Syria.

About 90 percent of Syria’s oil reserves are concentrated east of the Euphrates River, which was previously a stronghold and the main source of income for Daesh* terrorists, and is now mainly controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Turkish media earlier cited eyewitnesses as saying that US forces have already begun construction of two military bases in strategic locations in Syria’s oil-rich east.