No timeline for Syria withdrawal, says U.S.

‘We will maintain pressure on the IS’

Russian and Turkish Foreign and Defence Ministers met in Moscow on December 31, 2018, to discuss northern Syria as U.S. forces prepare to withdraw and Turkey threatens to launch a military operation against U.S.-backed Kurdish forces controlling nearly a third of the country.

The U.S. has no timeline to withdraw troops from Syria but does not plan to stay indefinitely, a State Department official said on Friday.

U.S.-backed forces are still retaking territory from the Islamic State in Syria, Pentagon officials said on Friday, two weeks after Washington said it would withdraw its roughly 2,000 troops there. At the time, President Donald Trump said the troops had succeeded in their mission and were no longer needed there.

The State Department official, briefing reporters before a visit to West Asia next week by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, appeared to be seeking to allay that concern. “We have no timeline for our military forces to withdraw from Syria,” said the official. “It will be done in such a way that we and our allies and partners maintain pressure on ISIS throughout and we do not open up any vacuums for terrorists.”

Mr. Trump said on Wednesday that the U.S. would get out of Syria slowly “over a period of time” and would protect the Kurdish fighters.