Aldar Khalil, a member of the ruling Democratic Union Party’s (PYD) leadership, told the Saudi Arabia-based Al-Riyadh newspaper on Friday that the oil deal is “very important” as 20 percent of oilfields were damaged during the Islamic State’s (ISIS) bloody reign in the area.
“After the war with ISIS ended, only 20 percent of Syrian oilfields stayed operational. We need to fully repair the wells because their interiors have been damaged...their maintenance is very significant,” Khalil said.
“If Washington did not grant investment to the region, repair and development of these wells would be impossible as there are laws which clearly ban companies from operating in Syria,” he added.
The US-imposed Caesar Act took effect in mid-June, imposing sanctions on the Syrian regime’s top officials - including Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, his wife and various regime-linked entities.
US Special Envoy to Syria William Roebuck previously assured Kurdish authorities in the northeast, known to Kurds as Rojava, of “continuous support” from the US despite the new measures. Khalil said the deal shows Washington has granted Rojava some relief from the sanctions.
The de-facto autonomous region was established in 2012 following the Syrian uprising against Assad the previous year. It is now ruled by the PYD under the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (NES).
This is the first time a senior Kurdish politician has publicly confirmed the deal, days after US President Donald Trump said that they would decide on the deal “fairly soon.”
“We are down to almost nothing, except we kept the oil. We will work on some kind of a deal with Kurds on that. But we kept the oil,” he said during his meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi.
“We will make a determination over the oil fairly soon.”
Not much is known about the agreement, but it has been widely reported that Delta Crescent Energy LLC is involved, according to VOA which quoted an anonymous Kurdish official saying a refinery will be built in the area "with a cost of $150 million.”
The deal has been condemned by both Damascus and Ankara. The Syrian regime labeled it as “theft” and Turkey said it is “considered within the scope of financing terrorism.”
Kurds have controlled most of the northeast since the Syrian uprising in 2011, following the withdrawal of the regime forces to fight opposition forces in other parts of the country.
According to Khalil, attempts to repair the oilfields are nothing new and predate the Syrian civil war.
“These maintenance works were taking place even before 2011 when the Syrian government was making deals with foreign companies in this regard,” he said.
