OREANDA-NEWS. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said that the United States is selling to the Turkish side the oil captured in the Syrian fields. He stated this in an interview with the Chinese television channel Phoenix, the text of which is quoted by SANA on Monday. Answering a journalist’s question about what is happening with oil extracted from fields east of the Euphrates River, Assad said that "America is now stealing oil and selling it to Turkey".

The Syrian leader noted that before the Americans began to sell oil to Ankara from the fields of Syria, the Islamic group Jebhat al-Nusra (banned in the Russian Federation) and then the international terrorist organization Islamic State (IG, banned in the Russian Federation) were engaged in this). "The Turkish regime is directly involved in the sale of oil, earlier it interacted with Jebhat al-Nusra, later with the Islamic State, and today with the Americans", Assad concluded.

US President Donald Trump in October announced the withdrawal of the US military from the area of ​​the Turkish operation in northern Syria, but said that Washington intends to maintain control of oil fields in the north-east of the country.