Russian forces block US military patrol in northeast Syria

Russia’s RT television network reported on Monday that Russian personnel had stopped the US military patrol along the M4 highway, some 10 kilometers west of the town of Tall Tamr.

Informed sources said the US convoy was forced to return because it had violated security protocols between Moscow and Washington.

Russia said the US had not given prior notice regarding its troops’ movements in Hasakah.

Hasakah is occupied by American soldiers and the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a US-backed anti-Damascus alliance of mainly Kurdish militants. Turkey also controls areas in the province and elsewhere following military operations in northern Syria.

Russia has been helping Syrian forces in ongoing battles across the conflict-plagued state, mainly providing aerial support to ground operations against foreign-backed terrorists.

The Russian military assistance, which began in September 2015 at the request of the Damascus government, has proved effective as Syrians continue to recapture key areas from Takfiri elements.

However, the United States has deployed forces and military equipment in Syria without any authorization from Damascus or the UN.

It has long been training militants and stealing Syria’s oil, ignoring repeated calls by Damascus to end its occupation of the country.

Russia: US exacerbated humanitarian situation in Syria

In another development on Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov complained that the humanitarian situation in Syria has been aggravated by the US through its illegal sanctions and occupation of the eastern bank of the Euphrates River.

“They are looting hydrocarbons and other mineral resources, and use the money they earn on that to finance projects that are seen by many as encouraging separatism and provoking dissolution of the Syrian state,” he said after talks with Helga Schmid, the secretary general of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

He also warned against attempts by the United States and some European countries to hamper the return of Syrian refugees, noting that the Western assistance goes to camps in Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon so as “to make the refugees stay there as long as possible.”

Lavrov further expressed Moscow’s readiness to discuss the humanitarian situation in Syria with the Western states if they recognize their responsibility in this regard.

“If the set of these factors is recognized as impacting the humanitarian situation in Syria, we are ready to discuss that as a whole. But our Western partners should categorically refuse from one-sided interpretations of these or those problems, and recognize their responsibility for the general situation in Syria’s humanitarian sphere,” he said.