US looting responsible for Syrian humanitarian crisis: Chinese FM

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Syria's energy crisis and humanitarian disaster are a result of American theft and larceny, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on Tuesday.

In response to Syrian reports that US forces smuggled 53 tankers of Syrian oil to military bases in Iraq last week, Wang expressed that illegal robberies in Syria have become overtly excessive. 80% of Syria's daily oil production, he added, has been raided by the US troops just since the beginning of this year and 60 tankers and trucks of Syrian oil and wheat have been ravaged. 

Wenbin stressed on the US' greed in looting Syrian resources, underlining the irony of their 'generosity' in shipping billions of military aid to foreign lands to finance wars - a jab at their involvement in wars around the globe. 

Read more: Why does the US continue to station troops in Syria?

Dragging other countries into turmoil and disaster to maintain interests and hegemony is what the US does best, according to Wenbin, who believes that this is the reality of the US' "rule-based order."

He further demanded an explanation by the US, not just to the Syrian people but to the global community, for stealing oil and stepping over the international rule of law. The US military has been present in the oil-rich region since 2014.

Caught in the act

In September, Syrian news agency SANA reported that US occupation forces looted a new batch of Syrian oil from the Al-Jazeera fields and smuggled them to US bases in Iraq. It quoted local sources from Al-Yarubiyah countryside as saying that "a convoy of the US occupation forces, consisting of 88 tankers loaded with stolen Syrian oil, left from the illegitimate Al-Mahmoudiyah crossing and entered Iraqi territory." Local sources mentioned that the US convoy exited the Syrian territories toward the bases of the US occupation in northern Iraq.

China isn't the only one admitting to catching them in the act. In late August, the Syrian and Russian Coordination Bodies Meeting accused in a joint statement the US of continually looting Syrian oil, being the cause behind the difficult situation that the Syrian people have been suffering from. 

The two bodies called on the international community, especially countries neighboring Syria, to implement strict measures to put the smuggling of the Syrian people's wealth out of the country to a halt. They also called for the United Nations and its institutions to play a more assertive role in taking more initiatives to expand humanitarian activities in Syria, regarding projects related to early reconstruction, as stipulated by UN Security Council Resolution No. 2642.