Russia and Syria have accused the US of using a fictitious oil company to illegally extract and export Syrian oil.. At the same time, the plundering of the country's natural resources is carried out with the approval and under the direct leadership of Washington..
About, whom Washington has sent to plunder the oil resources of Syria and why President Trump and Secretary of State Pompeo are accused in the US of war crimes, read in material Federal News Agency.
Russia and Syria blamed the US
The interdepartmental coordination headquarters of the Russian Federation and the SAR announced 3 September, that US policy is aimed at destabilizing the situation in Syria and plundering the country's natural resources. A very serious problem is the situation, formed in the north-east of the Syrian Arab Republic.
“The illegal presence of the United States and its allies in the international anti-terrorist coalition on the territory of a sovereign Syrian state leads to the plunder of Syria’s natural resources and incites hotbeds of tension in the region. A striking example of this is the conclusion of an agreement on cooperation in the field of production and sale of oil by an American oil company Delta Crescent Energy with armed terrorist separatist forces, operating in the north-east of Syria", - emphasize the representatives of the MKSH.
The illegal occupation of eastern Syria by the United States and the illegal armed groups of the Syrian Democratic Forces under its control has become one of the main threats to the well-being of the civilian population of the country., emphasized the representatives of the coordination headquarters.
Delta Crescent Energy LLC
29 July 2020 Republican Senator of the Year Lindsey Graham had a conversation with the commander of the "Syrian Democratic Forces" (SDS), militant of the banned PKK in Turkey Oppressed Abdi. The leader of the Kurdish armed groups told the senator about the deal, in which a certain company from the United States will produce oil in the territory of Syria controlled by pro-American forces. Kurdish commander asked to inform the US president.
The next day, Graham raised the issue of the oil deal at a meeting of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee., where the head of the State Department was present Mike Pompeo. The Secretary of State confirmed the information: According to him, U.S. company officially enters into an agreement to "modernize oil production facilities" in US-controlled Syria.
"Deal took longer, than we hoped, Pompeo noted. “Now we are in the process of implementing it.”.
On the same day, information about the deal was confirmed to Al-Monitor by sources in Syria - according to them, the deal was made "with the knowledge and approval" of the White House. The company was named Delta Crescent Energy LLC. Conversation, according to sources, "going on for a long time", and the company already has a license to operate in Syria from the Office of Foreign Assets Control (I DO IT) US Department of the Treasury (This department is looking after, to deal, by American companies, did not contradict the sanctions imposed by the United States). According to sources, the deal was concluded for a period of 25 years.
According to Al Monitor, The U.S. has also pledged to hand over two modular refineries to VTS — but that would only allow the closure of 20% from the total need of SDS in oil refining. The delivery of the refinery was delayed due to "logistical difficulties, related to the COVID-19 epidemic".
Refutation
Already 2 August, representatives of the autonomous administration in northern Syria denied Pompeo's statements, stated, that there is no deal.
“Many other companies are from Russia, from America, - want to work in the region, however, at the moment, none of them has signed agreements with the autonomous administration", - Abed Hamed al-Mehbash, "co-chairman" of the Kurdish autonomy, told the North Press agency.
Representative of the Syrian Kurds Sons of Mohamad confirmed the information about the deal Al-Monitor, however, he declined to comment on it in a conversation with the National Interest., as well as the head of the self-proclaimed "Ministry of Oil" of the "Syrian Democratic Forces" Abdulkarim Malak. Similarly, OFAC also declined to comment on the deal., citing trade secrets.
Another "Kurdish diplomat" stated, that there is an "agreement, but not a contract. Pompeo, According to him, ahead of events, and the terms of the agreement with the American company are "still under discussion".
Statements by the US leadership regarding the deal naturally met with sharp condemnation from the legitimate government of Syria. It was called "violation of sovereignty" and "theft". And Russia, and Turkey also called the deal "completely unacceptable".
National Interest notes, what remains unclear, where the Kurdish Autonomous Administration is going to sell oil - the United States will not allow the sale of oil to the government of Syria, Turkey refuses to deal with Syrian Kurds, whom Ankara considers under the control of the terrorist PKK, and unclear, whether neighboring Iraq will officially allow oil to be exported to its territory.
Lawyer, oilman and "man-legend"
Company, which received permission from the US Treasury to "modernize oil facilities" in the occupied part of Syria, was created in February 2019 of the year. Her office is registered in the "Corporate Trust Center" building in Wilmington., Delaware - this small brick building is the legal address of more than 300 000 US companies, including those like Apple, eBay и Walmart. This is because the, that Delaware is a "tax haven", and does not collect sales tax.
Among the founders of the company is the former US Ambassador to Denmark James P. Kane, lawyer at international company Kilpatrik Townsend. A large law firm is known for participating in high-profile cases - for example, she defended the interests of the widow of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, brutally murdered in the Saudi Arabian embassy. Then the lawyers resolved the case "to everyone's satisfaction", persuading the widow to accept a hefty compensation from Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Besides, Delta Crescent Energy founders include former chief executive of British oil producer GulfSands Petroleum John P. Dorier Jr..
To 2012 GulfSands Petroleum officially operated in Syria, conducted production and oil exploration at Blok 26, located in the extreme northeast of the province of Hasakah (where are these oil fields located, like Suwaydie, Rumeilan and Kurbet). Failing to get plots in Iraq, oilmen staked on Syria, and attracted a large number of international investors.
AT 2012 year, after the start of the civil war, GulfSands Petroleum had to curtail its business in Syria (where I got about 90% its oil), – the company could no longer sell Syrian oil to Germany, France and the UK due to EU sanctions against Damascus.
The most famous of the founders of Delta Crescent Energy is a "legend" (some media wording) Elite US Special Forces Delta Force Lieutenant Colonel James Reese, founder of the private military company TigerSwan, who, in his business autobiography, boasts of, that he "was a consultant to a multi-billion dollar top 100 company". We are talking about the famous PMC Erica Prince Blackwater - and according to a number of versions, TigerSwan is not an independent private military company., but only a "proxy" PMC Blackwater, and works for Vice President Mike Pence, who is closely associated with Prince..
Previously, all three founders of Delta Crescent Energy have consistently opposed the withdrawal of US troops from Syria.. James Caine in December 2018 year required, for the United States to fight more decisively against the terrorists of the "Islamic state"1 (for this, according to his version, the US military needs to stay in the war-torn country and "prevent, so that the Syrians or the Russians get the oil”).
James Reese in an interview with Fox and Friends 23 April 2018 years, that the US “cannot abandon” eastern Syria.
"We own all of eastern Syria. If you draw a line from Kobani down the Euphrates to Iraq - all this is ours, Reese announced.. "We can't give it up".
Fox host says, he had by that time “already spent two years in Syria”. In an interview, Reese advocated the involvement of an international military mission from Arab countries in Syria.: "Egypt, Emirates, Jordan, Kuwait… they can come and help us fight ISIS.”1, which, According to him, "will never end".
GulfSands Petroleum openly announced plans to return to Syria in early June 2020 of the year.
“We have cut our costs and are well funded in the medium term, as we plan our return (on Block 26) picking up the pace", - said the managing director of the company John Bell.
At the same time, Delta Crescent Energy LLC was not mentioned..
known, that the US Treasury issued Delta Crescent Energy LLC a permit to operate in Syria in April 2019 years - just two months after the registration of the company.
license from the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) to carry on with the work; the same Treasury department that in 2018 had levied sanctions against the Syrian government’s “Petroleum Procurement Network,” targeting companies in Lebanon and –
— Julia Wraith (@JuliaWraith) August 6, 2020
And a little later, in October 2019 of the year, James Reese described to the Washington Examiner his plan to dismember Syria and alienate the zone of American occupation from Damascus.. According to him, "all this is being done for the benefit of the Kurds and the Syrian tribes of eastern Syria".
According to versions Riza, America must solve energy problems in northeast Syria (so that this economic sector “does not go to the Russians”). Turkey will “benefit from tariffs”, Reese argued, therefore, Erdogan must agree - especially on the condition, that the PKK will get nothing. And if Turkey does not agree, “Washington can squeeze them with new sanctions”.
In this way, according to the owner of PMC TigerSwan, everyone will win, apart from Damascus and Russia, US companies receive energy concessions, Kurdish administrations receive income from the sale of Syrian oil, Turkey imposes tariffs on the transfer of this oil, and the PKK will simply be “removed from the stage”.
However, this plan was not implemented - 9 October 2019 Turkey launched the military operation "Source of Peace" and, after fierce fighting, knocked out Kurdish militants from Ras al-Ain and Tel Abyad, occupying part of northern Syria up to the M4 highway. Americans on the orders of President Trump left their Kurdish allies, pro-American SDF also moved south.
The United States "kept oil"
The president Donald Trump did not think about the Kurdish allies of the United States - the main task of the remaining American troops in Syria was to "keep oil for themselves", and they did it.
"We keep the oil, repeated the President of the United States at the end of October 2019 of the year. - I have always said this - we will keep the oil. We want to save oil, this 45 million dollars per month. Let's save oil. And we saved the oil".
However, soon the situation around Syrian oil began to escalate.. Arab tribes in eastern Syria first experienced ISIS invasion, and then Kurdish militants and the US military, who destroyed the cities captured by the "Islamic state" (IG1, IGIL; It banned in Russia). For years, the region lived in a state of humanitarian catastrophe, while money from the sale of illegally produced oil ended up in the pockets of Americans and Kurdish warlords. The American occupation did not improve the lives of civilians in any way, and an armed resistance movement was born in the region.
In the beginning of December 2019 At the Al-Omar oil field in Deir ez-Zor, a meeting was held between the sheikhs of the Arab tribes of eastern Syria and the SDF command, including the "Minister of Oil" of the pro-American group. The Arabs demanded to send part of the sums, received from the sale of oil, for the needs of the local population, which suffers from total unemployment, high prices and lack of infrastructure necessary for life.
According to Step News, The “minister of oil” of the Kurdish militants decisively refused the Bedouin sheikhs - in return, he offered a large bribe to them personally. Sheikhs rejected this offer, promising, that in the near future an armed uprising will rise in the region.
However, before open sorties against the invaders, it came only by the summer 2020 years - the situation escalated to the extreme in early August, when SDF fighters killed the sheikh of the Akidat tribe Mutashara al-Khafla. The tribes of eastern Syria declared, that they are starting an open armed confrontation with the invaders.
Difficult path to Kurdistan
Shortly after Pompeo announced that, that the contract in Syria was received by Delta Crescent Energy, there was information about, that James Reese met with the President of Iraqi Kurdistan Nechirvan Barzana and its chief of staff Fawazom Hariri. The exact date of the meeting is unknown., however, Reese has been to Iraqi Kurdistan in 2018 year.
A US government source told The New Republic, that Delta Crescent Energy plans to use a pipeline to pump Syrian oil, leading from Kirkuk to Turkey, while “adding oil, mined in Iraqi Kurdistan, to hide the origin of these resources". However, sources in Kurdistan called this option "unlikely" and "stupid" - oil from Syria is very different in quality and cannot be passed off as Iraqi, it threatens to conflict with the buyer.
According to another version, low-quality oil is planned to be processed at the Lanaz refinery in Iraqi Kurdistan. This refinery is under the control of the head of the region's intelligence services, Mansour Barzani, brother of the prime minister and cousin of the president of Iraqi Kurdistan..
At the same time, the pipeline, which plans to use Delta Crescent Energy, is the joint property of Turkey and Iraq - and in Baghdad they are already demanding, that the government of Iraqi Kurdistan stop using it on its own and return Baghdad under control. Ankara also officially opposed the deal between the Kurds and Delta Crescent Energy - proceeds from the sale of Syrian oil, according to Turkey, support the terrorist activities of the PKK.
“The US decision completely ignores international law, territorial integrity and sovereignty of Syria, and fits the definition of terrorist financing, Turkish Foreign Ministry said in an official statement. “This position cannot be justified and accepted under any circumstances.”.
Obstacles in the way of the robbers of Syria
In this way, on the way to Delta Crescent Energy plans (or, perhaps, should be said - the plans of Blackwater and the White House) there are several major hurdles. Among them, one can single out Turkey's sharply hostile attitude towards any deals., which involve the participation of Syrian Kurds - Ankara considers their structures to be directly related to the Kurdistan Workers' Party, with which I do not intend to put up.
Besides, growing resistance of the Arab tribes of eastern Syria, who for several years under the rule of the "Syrian Democratic Forces" and the militants of the "Islamic State" who joined them, were convinced that, that nothing good can be expected from the American occupation and they are acting more and more decisively against the occupiers.
The political situation in Iraqi Kurdistan and Iraq in general remains very unstable - Baghdad seeks to regain control of the pipeline, leading from Kirkuk to Turkey, while on the territory of the autonomy a confrontation is unfolding between the ruling Barzanist "Democratic Party of Kurdistan" and other Kurdish political forces, such as the Union of Communities of Kurdistan and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. The Kurdish population openly accuses the oligarchic Barzani clan of links with Turkey, which occupied part of northern Iraq and is consistently working on the demographic transformation of the region, supporting Turkmen forces.
Finally, The report on the work of the State Department with Delta Crescent Energy returned to the field of public discussion in the United States fundamental questions about Washington's policy in Syria. Already two American administrations, Obama and Trump, engaged in plundering Syrian natural resources and supporting terrorists, and Americans can't ignore it. The two presidents and their closest aides, Secretaries of State Pompeo and John Kerry, as well as Ministers of Defense Esper, Mattisa, Carter, accused of war crimes. The only excuse, that the State Department can offer, It is, that these actions are allegedly directed against the "Islamic state" (which, according to the White House, "destroyed and disempowered").
The oil of Syria belongs only to the Syrian people and only the official government in Damascus can dispose of it, whether Washington likes it or not. Plundering the natural resources of an occupied country is a war crime, as expressly stated in the Fourth Geneva Convention, ratified by the US 1955 year, and the US War Crimes Act 1996 of the year. In this way, the activities of the last two Washington administrations in Syria meet the definition of a war crime and should be the subject of an international investigation.
1 Organization banned in Russia.
Author: Valentin Melikov
