Two US officials, Joey Hood, the US Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs, and Patrick Verman, the Deputy Chief of Staff for the Global Coalition Against ISIS, told a State Department news conference that the United States forces would remain in northeastern Syria and would work with the Syrian Kurdish-Arabs fighters in the fight against the ISIS.
"We want to have a limited military presence in northeastern Syria to continue to fight ISIS with the help of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)," Joey Hood was quoted as saying in the conference, the US State Department website reported.
Patrick Verman also said that US President Joe Biden supports the continued presence of the current US forces in northern Syria, which are limited in number, to support local partners and to prevent the return of the ISIS.
He underscored that the coalition against the ISIS in Syria had suffered few casualties in the fight against the group in Syria, but that the Syrian Kurdish forces had tolerated the burden of the fight and that about 11,000 Kurdish forces had lost their lives in the fight.
"We are concerned about the tensions between Turkey and the Kurdish forces in Syria, but our presence in the northeastern region of Syria continues and we are focused on the fight against ISIS, and Turkey must understand this," the official also said.
Regarding the extradition of ISIS members and families to various countries around the world, Verman said: "2,000 ISIS foreign fighters and 2,000 Iraqi fighters of this group who are currently in Syrian Kurdish-controlled prisons must eventually be returned to their respective countries."
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