KUWAIT CITY, March 6. /TASS/. The United States needs the Rukban refugee camp to justify its illegitimate military presence in Syria, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters on Wednesday at a joint news conference with Kuwaiti Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Khalid Al-Hamad Al-Sabah.
"The fact that people are not allowed to leave [the camp] and are held hostage makes one suggest that the US needs this camp to continue justifying its illegitimate presence there," the minister noted.
"This is in line with the US policy aimed at creating something like a quasi-state on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River. It does not want these territories to get back under the control of Syria’s legitimate authorities."
"We will insist that these people are no longer held in the camp against their will," Lavrov stressed.