Russia says the US military presence in Syria looks like an occupation as it runs afoul of international law and lacks authorization from the Damascus government.<\/p>\n
“From the standpoint of international law, the United States of America stay illegally in Syria. They have no appropriate official permission or invitation from Damascus,\u201d Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday.<\/p>\n
“They are there against the will of the legitimate government of Syria, without legal basis, so in fact their behavior closely resembles that of an occupation,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
On November 13, US Defense Secretary James Mattis said the US would not walk away from Syria until UN-brokered peace talks in the Swiss city of Geneva made progress.
\nRussian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova<\/p>\n
\u201cThe enemy hasn\u2019t declared that they\u2019re done with the area yet, so we\u2019ll keep fighting as long as they want to fight,\u201d he said, claiming that Washington was conducting military operations in Syria under a UN mandate.<\/p>\n
Syria reacted angrily to Mattis\u2019 remarks, condemning the US military presence in the country as \u201can act of aggression.\u201d<\/p>\n
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also denounced the American intervention as illegal.<\/p>\n
“It is quite interesting how the US justifies its presence there, which is illegitimate because it does not rely either on the decision of the UN Security Council or on the invitation of the legitimate government,\u201d he said.
\nPressTV-Russia’s Lavrov: US presence in Syria ‘illegitimate’
\nUS Defense Secretary James Mattis was asked on Monday about the legal standing of his country\u2019s presence in Syria compared to that of Russia and Iran.<\/p>\n
Russia has been conducting air raids against Daesh and other terrorist groups inside Syria at the Damascus government\u2019s request since September 2015.<\/p>\n
On the contrary, the US and its allies back militants fighting to topple the Syrian government. American warplanes have been bombing Syria since September 2014 without any authorization from Damascus or a UN mandate, which has seriously damaged the country’s infrastructure.<\/p>\n
The airstrikes have on many occasions resulted in civilian casualties and failed to fulfill their declared aim of countering terrorism.<\/p>\n
Russian jets hit Daesh targets in Syria<\/p>\n
Separately on Thursday, Russia\u2019s Defense Ministry said its bombers had targeted positions held by Daesh militants in eastern Syria.
\nThe photo provided by the Russian Defense Ministry on March 16, 2016 shows a Russian Su-25 jet taking off at Hmeimim air base in Syria. (Via AP)<\/p>\n
“On November 23, 2017, Tu-22M3 long-haul bombers delivered a massive airstrike on Daesh terrorists\u2019 targets in the province of Dayr al-Zawr,” the ministry said.<\/p>\n
The Russian warplanes hit all the designated targets, it added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Russia says the US military presence in Syria looks like an occupation as it runs afoul of international law and lacks authorization from the Damascus government. “From the standpoint of international law, the United States of America stay illegally in Syria. They have no appropriate official permission or invitation from Damascus,\u201d Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":11868,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-news-and-analysis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11867"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11867\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11869,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11867\/revisions\/11869"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}