Secretary of State nominee Rex Wayne Tillerson testifies during his Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing on Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2017. Photograph by Bill Clark — CQ-Roll Call,Inc.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that Washington has no plans to create a 30,000-strong border force in northern Syria and claimed that the issue has been “misportrayed”.
“That entire situation has been misportrayed, misdescribed, some people misspoke. We are not creating a border security force at all,” the official reporters on his way back from giving a speech at Stanford University in California on Wednesday.
According to initial reports, the US is working with the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to establish the border force that will control the Turkish-Syrian border, the Iraqi-Syrian border and the Euphrates Valley area bordering the SDF-held part of eastern Syria.
The idea faced a strong criticism from Turkey and led to further deterioration of the relations between Ankara and Washington over the Syrian crisis.
Now, Tillerson is attempting to resolve the situation. However, he forgot to mention that just few days ago the Pentagon officially announced the creation of the border force that the US forces “are not creating”.
“The Coalition is working jointly with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to establish and train the new Syrian Border Security Force (BSF). Currently, there are approximately 230 individuals training in the BSF’s inaugural class, with the goal of a final force size of approximately 30,000,” spokesman for the US-led coalition Colonel Thomas F. Veale said. “The base of the new force is essentially a realignment of approximately 15,000 members of the Syrian Democratic Forces to a new mission in the Border Security Force as their actions against ISIS draw to a close.”
