The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, has vowed the US and its allies will “expel every last Iranian boot” from Syria as he sought to reassure Middle Eastern nations it was not withdrawing from the region despite Donald Trump’s call for troops to return home.
Pompeo: US will expel every last Iranian boot from Syria
STEPANAKERT, JANUARY 11, ARTSAKHPRESS: In a keynote speech delivered in Cairo, pitched as the centrepiece of his nine-country regional tour, Pompeo called for a common stand against Tehran. “It’s time for old rivalries to end, for the sake of the greater good of the region,” he said.
The US would “use diplomacy and work with our partners to expel every last Iranian boot” from Syria and bolster efforts “to bring peace and stability to the long-suffering Syrian people”, he said, according to the Guardian.
The US would “use diplomacy and work with our partners to expel every last Iranian boot” from Syria and bolster efforts “to bring peace and stability to the long-suffering Syrian people”, the president added.
The US’s most senior diplomat also delivered a rebuke to Barack Obama, whose address from the Egyptian capital a decade ago set the course for his government’s outreach to Iran and disavowal of George W Bush’s intervention in Iraq.
Pompeo claimed the US under Obama had been timid about asserting itself, “when the times – and our partners – demanded it”, and had emboldened Iran to entrench its influence across the region.
He committed to ongoing airstrikes against Isis but did not directly address Trump’s decision to withdraw 2,000 US ground forces from eastern Syria.
