Russian Ambassador in Washington: US occupation of Syrian territories is unacceptable

The Russian ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov has reaffirmed his country’s rejection of the US occupation of Syrian territories, stressing the US military presence in Syria is illegal.  

In an interview with “Newsweek” Magazine, Antonov said that Russia and the United States maintain their contacts concerning Syria, particularly their cooperation through military channels which has proved its effectiveness. “However, we believe that the presence of US troops in Syria is illegal and the US occupation of Syrian territories is unacceptable,” he added.

He emphasized that the US forces and other illegal armed formations should withdraw from all the Syrian territories.

 In a different context, Antonov said that the western allegations about the Russian military presence near Ukraine is nothing but a baseless propaganda, pointing out that Russia has the right in transferring its forces freely and in carrying out military drills inside its territories.

Antonov clarified that the continuous militarization of Ukraine with the participation of NATO is unacceptable for Russia and the presence of Western forces on Russian territories and the supposed accession of Ukraine to NATO are also unacceptable issues.

He stressed the need to sign a legally binding agreement with the participation of the United States and its European allies in order to halt the progress of NATO towards the east and prevent the deployment of weapons on the western borders of Russia.

The Russian diplomat also asserted that the West is behind the immigrant crisis at the Belarusian borders, due to the western countries’ refusal to rebuild the countries destroyed by western-backed wars. He reiterated the need to have constructive dialogue with Minsk to solve this crisis.

Hamda Mustafa