Syria Planning to Sue US for Plundering Its Oil
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - The Damascus government plans to file a lawsuit against Washington for plundering the oil resources of the Arab country, according to a senior adviser to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The Syrian government is looking into the possibility of suing Washington in an international court over the plundering of Syria’s oil reserves, Syrian presidential adviser Bouthaina Shaaban said in an interview with the Beirut-based pan-Arab Al-Mayadeen TV.
"Syria is looking into the possibility of filing an international lawsuit against the United States, due to the fact that they steal Syrian oil," she said in the interview, aired on Wednesday night.
Last month, Syria told the United Nations that the US had been occupying its oil fields and looting its resources as the world body remained silent on the act of misappropriation.
"The US occupies Syrian oil wells and plunders the Syrians' revenues in the shadow of the UN Security Council's silence," Syria's UN Ambassador Bashar al-Ja'afari told a meeting of the 15-member body in New York on November 13.
Syria’s state-run al-Ikhbariya TV reported last week that a large US military convoy had entered oil fields in northeastern Syria, despite widespread condemnation of the deployment as being tantamount to robbery. The reinforcements, the television said, had been dispatched to the provinces of al-Hasakah and Deir ez-Zor from neighboring Iraq.
US President Donald Trump announced US troop pullout from the zone of the Turkish military operation in northern Syria this fall, but said that his country would not give up control over oil fields in the north of the Arab country.
The Russian Defense Ministry has said that the United States was smuggling Syrian oil to other countries, while oil caravans are guarded by US private security companies and special forces.
