Iran Press/America: "What I intend to do, perhaps, is make a deal with Exxon Mobil or one of our great companies to go in there and do it properly ... and spread out the wealth," Trump said Sunday during a news conference about the US special forces operation that led to the death of the leader of ISIS (also known as Daesh) terrorist group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Exxon Mobil Corp and Chevron Corp, the two largest US oil companies operating in the Middle East, declined to comment on the President's remarks.
"International law seeks to protect against exactly this sort of exploitation," said Laurie Blank, an Emory Law School professor and director of its Center for International and Comparative Law.
"The United States wants to steal Syria's oil"
"It is not only a dubious legal move, but it also sends a message to the whole region and the world that America wants to steal the oil," said Bruce Riedel, a former national security advisor and now a senior fellow at think-tank Brookings Institution.
"The US suggestion is immoral and possibly illegal".
"The idea that the United States would 'keep the oil' in the hands of ExxonMobil or some other US company is immoral and possibly illegal," said Jeff Colgan, an associate professor of political science and international studies at Brown University. Colgan also said US companies would face "a host of practical challenges" to operate in Syria.
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Even getting Exxon or another major oil company to develop Syrian oil would be a "hard sell" given its relatively limited infrastructure and small output, said Ellen R. Wald, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Global Energy Center.
"US control over the disposition of the fields and the hard currency they offer would provide a significant influence over the shape of Syria's future," he said.
Russia’s defense ministry on Saturday harshly criticized the US decision to send armored vehicles and combat troops into the oil-rich region in eastern Syria, calling it “banditry”.
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Russia's foreign ministry spokesman Maj. Gen Igor Konashenkov said, “what Washington is doing now, the seizure and control of oil fields in eastern Syria under its armed control, is, quite simply, a form of international banditry."
“All hydrocarbon deposits and other minerals located on the territory of Syria do not belong to the [ISIS] terrorists, and even less to the ‘American defenders of ISIS terrorists,’ but exclusively to the Syrian Arab Republic.
“The real cause of this illegal action by the United States in Syria lies far from the ideals that Washington has proclaimed and from the slogans of fighting terrorism,” Konashenkov said.
A large convoy of Syrian government troops was also spotted heading toward the M4 highway. The Syrian state news agency Sana said troops had entered the region of Ras al-Ayn, deploying to eight villages along the highway and up near the Syrian-Turkish border.
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