MOSCOW, November 7. /TASS/. Moscow and Damascus have called on the international community to pressure Washington to withdraw all US troops from the territory of Syria, the joint statement by Russian and Syrian coordination headquarters on humanitarian situation in Syria informed.
"We call on the entire international community to pressure the US, which continues to violate norms of international law by maintaining its presence on illegally occupied territories of Syria, and to obligate the US to withdraw all its troops from the sovereign Syrian Arab Republic," the statement says.
The statement claims that US’ unlawful presence in Syria is the main destabilizing factor in Syria currently. Namely, the US continues to hold the 55-km area around al-Tanf, hindering the release of refugees held at the Rukban camp, the statement adds. Despite the readiness of Russia and Syria to implement the third stage of the UN plan on evacuating the residents of the camp in big groups up to 2,500 people, on September 29, only 336 people left the camp.
"The reason for that is the unwillingness of the US to influence the militants under its control, who sabotaged the alert of the upcoming action, restricted the duration of stay of the humanitarian convoy, engaged in extortion and directly threatened families wishing to leave the camp," the statement informs.
The Rukban refugee camp was set up at the Syrian-Jordanian border in 2014 after Jordan closed its border for security reasons. The humanitarian situation in the camp is nearly catastrophic as the adjacent area is controlled by illegal armed groups.
The Russian reconciliation center continues to fulfill assigned tasks after the completion of the military campaign in Syria. The center’s officers regularly travel around the country's liberated areas to assess the humanitarian situation. The main efforts of the Russian military are now focused on assistance to the refugees returning to their homes and evacuation of civilians from de-escalation zones.