Syria ‘important’ for US: Former diplomat

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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The next US administration should not ignore Syria because it is an “important” country, given that America has a military base there, a former American diplomat said on Monday.

Vincent Campos told Rudaw that first statements from US President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump regarding the downfall of Bashar al-Assad were “short” but commended Biden’s second reaction.

Trump said on Saturday that the conflict in Syria is not America’s fight and it should not get involved while Biden on Sunday labeled it the Syrian people’s triumph over Assad.

Reacting to Biden’s press conference, Campos said he felt that what Biden said was “important.”

“Unlike what Trump was trying to convey, Syria is important to the United States for several reasons. And also, we have a military already in Syria that are working and have been working with the Kurds. And that's something I don't think Trump really understood,” he told Rudaw’s Nalin Hassan.

The US has around 900 troops in Syria, mainly helping Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS).

Syria’s civil war dramatically reignited late last month when a coalition of rebels led by the Islamist Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) launched a blistering offensive against the Syrian army. They ousted Bashar al-Assad on Sunday.

Zalmay Khalilzad, former US ambassador to Iraq and Afghanistan, said on Sunday that Syria will be on Trump's agenda when he takes office, but it will not be his main focus despite the rapid changes happening in the region.

"Of course it will have to reflect his preferences, his desires, but also the realities of the region. And at the present time, the key issues are what to do about Gaza and the Israeli war there," Khalilzad told Rudaw on the sidelines of Doha Forum.

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