Page 7 - MEOG Week 08

MEOG Commentary MEOG
are significant flows of oil, which help provide the Kurdish province in Syria with a financial lifeline.
Thousands of barrels of oil per day are flow- ing from Syria into Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, in an opaque trade that has served for several years as a financial lifeline for the Kurdish-led government in northern Syria and its military wing, the SDF.
The trade has evolved since it first began in 2014, and many details are still murky, but the exports are reportedly currently earning tens of millions of dollars per month, based on inter- views with oil officials in Syria, border officials in Iraq, oil and fuel traders, crude buyers in Iraqi Kurdistan, and captured Kurdish forces in Turkey.
“We have oil and sell it to whoever buys,” said a top political leader in the Autonomous Admin- istration of North and Eastern Syria, known col- loquially as Rojava.
“It is a free market, and everyone can trade whatever they have.... The oil revenue is man- aged by Autonomous Administration of North and Eastern Syria, and all of it is used to provide servicesandsecurityforthearea.”
According to the accounts of the surrendered Kurds, reported by Turkish media, oil from Syr- ia’s oil-rich Deir Ezzor region is being smuggled out of the country on to Iraq and from the latter’s port of Basra it is being shipped to the US; Swe- den, Denmark, the Netherlands and Egypt are also reported to have taken samples of that oil.
After his surprise announcement of pulling the US troops out of Syria in October last year, President Donald Trump said that the United States would protect Syrian oilfields from ISIL.
President Trump claimed that the US had taken control of the oil in the Middle East,
tweeting that “The US has secured the oil, & the ISIS fighters are double secured by Kurds & Turkey.”
The President did not elaborate on what he meant by “securing the oil,” but speculation about his statement assume he was referring to the US special forces that have been — and will continue to be — in control of oil and gas fields in Deir Ezzor.
In the immediate aftermath of the US with- drawal, Russia seemed poised to replace the United States as the main foreign power in north-east Syria, a strategic and economic vic- tory achieved at no cost — not least because Moscow has exclusive rights to rebuild the Syrian oil and gas sector and most reserves are located in the north-east.
But Trump’s decision to remain in Syria to “secure the oil” deferred this scenario. The US military, having abandoned the northern border area, reinforced bases in Deir Ezzor and Hasakah provinces — in effect, shifting the weight of the US Syrian presence east, toward the Iraqi border. And recent diplomatic moves indicate US sup- port for the SDF in talks to end the present civil war — pending another Presidential about-face.
President Trump has vowed to protect Syr- ian oilfields from ISIL, and the US may leave 500 troops in north-eastern Syria and send in battle tanks and other equipment with the purpose of helping the Kurds in the area to protect oil- fields that used to be controlled by ISIL during its so-called caliphate in parts of Iraq and Syria.
Quoting a local journalist: “On the ground the Americans, right now, are doing the oppo- site of the decision to withdraw from the area ... they are really making sure to have the main role”. With such a wide range of competing pow- ers in play, this is a region to keep an eye on.™
Week 08 26•February•2020 w w w. N E W S B A S E . c o m P7