Zakharova: US Claims about Its Victory over ISIS in Syria ‘Groundless’

MOSCOW- US President Donald Trump’s claims the United States has achieved victory over terrorists in Syria are groundless and illogical, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday.

“These statements are limitlessly illogical and groundless,” she said. “Statements made by spokespersons of US official bodies of power never stop making U-turns.”

“One question has to be asked, though. Is all this being said for the sake of some political activity, for attracting the electorate, or is it the official stance of the United States?” she added, according to Itar Tass.

 US President Donald Trump has more than once claimed that the coalition’s operations in Syria have been successful. Speaking in the White House on December 12 before putting his signature to a bill on the financing and main guidelines of the US Department of Defense in 2018 fiscal year Trump reiterated the claim the United States took the credit for victory over ISIS.

Moscow doesn’t accept US-led coalition’s pretexts to stay in Syria

Moscow is not accepting the US-led coalition’s pretexts to stay in Syria as this violates the Arab Republic’s sovereignty, she went on.

“Russia’s presence in Syria is legitimate and in full compliance with the international law,” Zakharova said. “The excuses for the coalition’s steps, which violate Syria’s sovereignty, cannot be accepted, especially when they are accompanied by remarks that ISIS was not totally defeated in Syria, and, if it was, the main credit goes to the US, the coalition led by it, the Western world and so on.”

The diplomat stressed that “the decisive contribution to ensuring victory over terrorists in Syria had been made by the Russian task force, which brilliantly accomplished its task, helped the Syrian army to defend Syria as a sovereign independent state, and this has been recognized by international experts.”

Zakharova recalled that Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered to begin the withdrawal of a sizeable part of Russian troops from Syria. “However, our military servicemen retain their presence on Syrian soil and are ready, if necessary, to foil terrorists’ attempts to regroup and replenish their losses in manpower and equipment.”

Humanitarian aid

Zakharova went on to say that Moscow believes that the procedure of aid deliveries across the border into Syria undermines the country’s sovereignty.

“The United Nations Security Council is currently considering the extension of a special procedure, established back in 2014, on the UN’s humanitarian aid deliveries into Syria across the neighboring states’ borders,” she said. “According to Russia’s assessment, this procedure is in fact set to cause Syria’s breakup, which runs counter to the UN Security Council’s resolution and agreements negotiated in various international formats.”

The procedure was imposed “amid utterly different circumstances in the conflict and had an emergency manner.”

“It has been undermining and is still undermining Syria’s sovereignty and creates an extremely unwelcome precedent in international attitudes to humanitarian aid,” the Russian diplomat underlined.

Russia is ready “for joint work to determine the most optimal ways for terminating the procedure – which has attained its objective – of trans-border deliveries of humanitarian consignments with minimum damage to those in need.”

Moscow believes that “a transparent mechanism notifying the UN Security Council of who the relief aid is being delivered to and how much of it” should be set up, Zakharova said.

“Russia has submitted relevant proposals to the UN Security Council. Along with this, we are convinced that simple technical extension of this mechanism without any substantial amendments fail to meet new realities in Syria,” she said.

H.M