U.S. seen as wavering on deal in Syria
‘De-escalation zone’ increasingly threatened
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration appears to be walking away from a pledge to enforce an arrangement to stabilize southwestern Syria as the Syrian military presses ahead with an offensive in the rebel-held area despite repeated U.S. warnings.
The offensive violates an agreement between the U.S., Russia and neighboring Jordan, whose monarch met with President Donald Trump on Monday. The nearly year-old agreement is intended to preserve the status quo in Syria’s southwest, but recent public and private statements suggest the U.S. commitment is slipping.
Although the administration has been consistent in criticizing Russia for backing Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces’ advance into the “de-escalation zone” in the province of Daraa, over the past two weeks U.S. officials in Washington and in the Middle East have steadily walked back warnings of American retaliation for violations.
And as the situation became more critical Monday, threatening an influx of refugees fleeing the fighting into Jordan, officials there announced they would not take in the newly displaced.
The White House said Syria would be on the agenda of Trump’s talks with Jordanian King Abdullah II, but neither leader mentioned that country in their brief comments to reporters. Trump said only that a
“lot of progress” had been made in the Middle East. He did not identify specific areas of improvement.
Earlier Monday, however, the State Department said the situation in southwest Syria remained a matter of serious concern, although it did not repeat earlier threats of a U.S. response that had been standard in such comments since May.
The U.S. said it was “closely following the situation” and emphasizing to Russia the “critical nature of the mutual adherence to the cease-fire arrangement.”
“We will not comment further on ongoing diplomatic conversations,” it said.