The United States will scale down its military bases in Syria while changing its policy toward the country due to previous failures, the new U.S. ambassador to Türkiye and Donald Trump’s Special Envoy for Syria Thomas Barrack said on Tuesday.
Barrack, who was named special envoy last month shortly after Washington unexpectedly lifted U.S. sanctions on Syria, made the comments in an interview with broadcaster NTV late on Monday.
The U.S. military has about 2,000 troops in Syria, mostly in the northeast. They are working with local forces including the PKK’s Syrian wing, the YPG, to prevent a resurgence of Daesh, which in 2014 seized large swathes of Iraq and Syria but was later pushed back.
Since opposition forces ousted Syria's former President Bashar Assad in December, the U.S. and other countries are re-engaging with Damascus under new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.
Barrack raised the American flag over the ambassador's residence in Damascus last week for the first time since 2012.
When asked how the Trump administration will shape its Syria policy and whether the U.S. is considering troop withdrawal from Syria, Barrack said: "What I can assure you is that our current Syria policy will not be close to the Syria policy of the last 100 years, because none of these have worked."
Reducing the number of bases to one from eight was an important part of that shift, he said, according to an interview transcript.
Two security sources in bases where U.S. troops are deployed told Reuters in April that military equipment and vehicles had already moved out of eastern Deir el-Zour and were being consolidated in the province of Hasakah.
One of the sources said the consolidation plan involved pulling all U.S. troops out of Deir el-Zour province.
A U.S. State Department official said separately that the military presence would be reduced "if and when appropriate" based on conditions, adding troops are routinely calibrated based on operational needs and contingencies.
Barrack said that the YPG-dominated SDF were a U.S. ally and a "very important factor" for the U.S. Congress, and that directing them to integrate into a new Syrian government was also very important.
"Everyone needs to be reasonable in their expectations," he said.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said last week that the SDF was using "stalling tactics,” despite a deal with the Syrian government to integrate into Syria's armed forces.
The deal was signed in March by Syria’s interim president and Ferhat Abdi Şahin, code-named "Mazloum Kobani," the ringleader of the YPG. Damascus shunned an open conflict with the YPG and sought a deal for their integration into the new Syrian army.
The YPG currently occupies one-third of Syria's territory, including most of the country's oil and gas fields. The YPG uses the name SDF to give itself an air of legitimacy. Türkiye, which suffered from cross-border attacks by the YPG, supported the Syrian opposition through military offensives in Syria’s north in the past decade and liberated parts of northern Syria from the YPG's grip.
Türkiye has urged Syria’s interim administration to address the YPG’s control over large parts of northern Syria and is currently closely monitoring the integration of the SDF into the Syrian government. Ankara is a major supporter of the al-Sharaa-led administration and also backs the March deal.
The issue strains Turkish-U.S. ties as Ankara warns its NATO ally against aiding terror elements that threaten its national security, something Washington continues to do despite promising to remove the group from the Turkish border area.
