Biden administration not trading Syrian oil for aid corridors with Moscow
The Biden administration said Syrian oil is for the people of Syria, not for the United States.
The Joe Biden administration has denied claims its decision to not renew a sanctions waiver for an American energy company that was planning to extract and market oil in Kurdish-controlled northeastern Syria is connected to efforts to get Russia to maintain cross-border humanitarian aid corridors to the war-stricken country.
The waiver for Delta Crescent Energy expired in May and was not renewed, as first reported by Al-Monitor a year after it was granted by the Donald Trump administration, which said it was keeping some US troops in northeast Syria to “keep” and “secure" the oil. The Biden administration says it is staying in northeast Syria “for the people” and “not for the oil.” Syria is under heavy sanctions by the United States, including the 2017 Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) and its related authorities, Executive Order (EO) 13894 from October 14, 2019, and the 2019 Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act (Caesar Act) against the Assad regime and its patrons.
