Jeffrey calls on Biden to continue Trump’s Syria policies
The US special representative for Syria, who was relieved of his duties, James Jeffrey, advised President-elect Joe Biden to pursue the policies of his predecessor, Donald Trump, in the Middle East, who will hand over power on January 20.
Jeffrey told Defense One, which specializes in defense analysis; Trump’s decision in 2019 to withdraw American soldiers from Syria was a surprise to everyone, but he was later convinced to keep about 200 soldiers, for various reasons.
Jeffrey, who leaves office this month, has defended Trump’s Syria policies.
He said, “We did not announce the exact number of our soldiers in Syria at any time,” justifying this with operational security necessities.
Regarding media reports that lead to America supporting the PKK in Syria, he said, “The United States abandoned the Kurds in Syria to the Turks”.
He pointed out that they provided a guarantee to the Kurdish units to help against any potential attacks from the Assad regime, Russian mercenaries and ISIS.
He said, “No one in Washington offered a military guarantee to the Kurds in Syria against Turkey”.
He believed that, “Although the Trump administration has not been able to solve the chronic problems in the Middle East, it has created at least a balance between the parties,” and that this is better than the worst case scenario, as he put it.
And the last national, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo confirmed the end of James Jeffrey’s service, to return to his retirement at the end of November.
Pompeo said in a statement: “Jeffrey, who worked for nearly two years in his post, was released from his retirement in August 2018, at the request of the Secretary of State to receive the Syrian file as his representative”.
Jules Rayburn, who works as a deputy to the US envoy for Syria affairs, will be appointed to take over the Syrian file, while the coordinator for anti-terrorism affairs, Nathan Sales, will assume the role of the US envoy to the international coalition against ISIS.
