"The Americans need to understand that the events that took place in northeast Syria in the past few years with their participation are a direct violation of the UN Security Council resolution on respecting Syria’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. The Americans have established quasi-government structures there, keeping them functional and actively promoting the Kurdish issue in a way to cause dissent among the Arab tribes traditionally populating these territories," the Russian top diplomat said.

NUR-SULTAN, October 9. /TASS/. The inconsistent policy of the US on the Kurds may affect the entire Middle Eastern region, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated on Wednesday, adding that it must be stopped at all costs.

"It is a very dangerous game," Lavrov noted. "During my recent visit to Iraq, I have talked with the Iraqi Kurds: they are very much concerned that such careless treatment of a highly sensitive issue may affect the whole region, which must be avoided at all costs. We are trying to make it clear to the US side. However, so far, we see few changes in their inconsistent and contradictory policy," the minister stressed.

He pointed out that US actions in Syria attest to the inability of Washington to come to an agreement. "The fact that our American colleagues are full of contradictions reflects their inability to reach an agreement, this is clear to me. We have called on them repeatedly to put an end to the unlawful occupation of territory in the area of Al-Tanf, where they created a base with the radius of 55 km — a huge territory that shelters some very bad people, including terrorists, extremists, people who terrorize refugees and displaced persons in the Rukban camp," Lavrov continued. "The Americans have repeatedly broken their promises, just like they broke the promise to limit and then to eliminate their presence in Al-Tanf."

"[US President] Donald Trump did state many times that he would withdraw US troops from Syria and other states. Then his directives were shut down by those tasked to follow them. We might be witnessing something similar now," the foreign minister assumed.

On October 1, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that Ankara planned to create a safety zone east of the Euphrates River in Syria on its own as it had failed to achieve the desired result in talks with the US. The White House said following an October 6 telephone conversation between US President Donald Trump and Erdogan that "the United States Armed Forces will not support or be involved in the operation, and United States forces, having defeated the ISIS territorial ‘Caliphate,’ will no longer be in the immediate area." On October 7, Erdogan stated that Washington had begun the withdrawal of troops from northeast Syria, where Turkey planned to carry out an operation to establish a safety zone.

On Monday, Trump wrote on Twitter that "it is time for us to get out of these ridiculous endless wars, many of them tribal, and bring our soldiers home." The White House first announced the decision to pull troops out of Syria on December 19, 2018.