[RT] The US will spend no more money on the reconstruction of war-ravaged Syria if it does not see off Iranian troops, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said. The US previously said it would stay in Syria as long as Iran is there.
Speaking to the pro-Israel Jewish Institute for National Security of America on Wednesday, Pompeo said that Damascus should kick out Iranian elements that helped it to drive out the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
(IS, formerly ISIS) from large swathes of its territory, if it wants to keep receiving reconstruction assistance from Washington in the future.
"If Syria doesn’t ensure the total withdrawal of Iranian-backed troops, it will not receive one single dollar from the United States for reconstruction."
Pompeo noted that Washington holds Damascus responsible for the departure of Iranian forces, saying that "the onus of expelling Iran from the country falls on the Syrian government."
While the US has long demanded that the Iranian forces, which are in Syria at the invitation of Damascus, leave their positions, it the first time Washington has linked humanitarian assistance to Iran’s complete withdrawal.
Only last August, Iran and Syria signed a defense agreement that was aimed at rebuilding Syria’s severely depleted armed forces and its military industry.
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