ALBAWABA - The Syrian government has asked the United Nations and the international community to hold US officials "accountable" for the continuous theft of Syrian oil from the country's northeast oil wells.
A letter from the Syrian foreign ministry addressed to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres reads: "US officials [must] be held accountable for the looting, and the US government [must] be obliged to pay compensation, end the illegal presence of US forces, and return the lands it occupies and the oil and gas fields to the Syrian state,".
"The United States of America and its tools of terrorist organizations and militias continue to violate sovereignty and loot the country’s wealth and strategic resources, with the aim of exacerbating the effects of illegal unilateral coercive measures and depriving Syrians of the capabilities of their homeland and increasing their suffering," the letter adds.
According to the letter's estimations, the US military caused $115.2 billion in direct and indirect damage to Syria's oil and mineral wealth sector from 2011 to 2023.
The letter continued by urging that "American officials be held accountable for these thefts and that the American administration be forced to compensate for them".
According to the calculations from Syrian officials, direct losses in the oil sector amount to $27.5 billion due to "theft, waste, and burning of extracted oil estimated at 341 million barrels," while indirect losses amount to about $87.7 billion.
Furthermore, officials stated that by 2023, Washington and its proxy militias in northeast Syria were stealing 150 thousand barrels per day (bpd), as well as 59.9 million cubic meters of natural gas and 413 thousand tons of domestic gas.
General Mark Milley, the commander of the United States military, recently stated that the US military will remain in the Middle East, including Syria. He stated that the US is concerned about groups such as ISIS and wishes to defend their interests, especially oil wells.
