Damascus assured of US troops' Withdrawal From Syria 'Sooner or later' - Foreign Minister

Ksenia Shakalova, Alexei Shayya-Shirokov - Damascus is confident that Washington will eventually withdraw the US military detachment currently based in Syria, the Middle Eastern country's foreign minister, Faisal Mekdad, told Sputnik in an interview, stressing that Syrians have the will to resist.

"The troops of the United States will withdraw sooner or later, it is a matter [of] when because Syrian resistance to any occupation is there, the will of the people to resist foreign occupation is there," Mekdad stated in one of the first interviews after his appointment.

In October 2019, President Donald Trump announced the withdrawal of US troops from northern Syria, with the exception of a small contingent of military personnel that Washington said would protect oil fields from falling into the hands of Islamic State (terrorist organization, banned in Russia).

Syria has consistently accused these US troops of stealing oil and transporting it across the country's land border with Iraq.