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US seeking to tear Syria apart with illegal military presence: Analyst

Wednesday, 07 August 2019 10:27 AM [ Last Update: Wednesday, 07 August 2019 11:43 AM ]

Mark Dankof

The US military, with the assistance of Israel, Saudi Arabia and terrorist groups in the Middle East, is seeking to tear Syria apart, as it maintains its illegal presence in the war-torn country, a former US Senate candidate says.

“The United States [military] presence in Syria is totally illegal, as well as being ill-advised,” said Mark Dankof, who is also a broadcaster and pastor in San Antonio, Texas.

“A series of criminal regimes; the neocon Zionist regime that presently controls American foreign policy; the Israelis, (and) the Saudis," have torn Syria apart, Dankof told Press TV on Tuesday.

US Defense Secretary Mark Esper said on Tuesday any Turkish operation into northern Syria would be “unacceptable” and Washington would prevent unilateral incursions, as tensions between the two NATO members simmer.

“Clearly we believe any unilateral action by them (Turkey) would be unacceptable,” Esper told reporters traveling with him to Japan.

“What we’re going to do is prevent unilateral incursions that would upset, again, these mutual interests... the United States, Turkey and the SDF share with regard to northern Syria,” Esper said.

Turkey on Sunday repeated a threat to cross into Syria if conditions for a safe zone in the northern part of the country were not met.

The Turkish government has long been infuriated by Washington’s persisting support of the People's Protection Units (YPG), a Kurdish militant group in northern Syria, that the US regards it as the main purported fighting force against terrorists of the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group.

The YPG plays as the backbone of the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an anti-Damascus alliance of predominantly Kurdish militants. Ankara has declared the YPG as a terrorist group and views it as the Syrian branch of Turkey’s homegrown Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a terrorist group that has been fighting for an autonomous region inside the Anatolian country since 1984.

Turkey wants such a safe zone in northern Syria to be free of the SDF.

“We can only be patient for so long,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned on Sunday.

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