US official: we are not interested in changing map of Syria

WASHINGTON DC – The United States remains focused on defeating the Islamic State group (ISIS/ISIL) in Syria, but not changing the map of the war-torn country, a senior US official said Monday.

The United States has “been very clear that we’re not interested in doing anything that’s going to change the territorial integrity of Syria,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said in a press briefing in Washington on Monday.

“The mission here hasn’t changed. It’s about degrading and destroying ISIL,” he stressed.

Asked about Turkey, which declared war on ISIS late last month -- only to begin deadly air raids and attacks on its Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) opposition in which some 400 of the rebels have reportedly been killed and as many injured -- Kirby said Turkey also remains focused on the war against the Islamists.

“Everybody is focused on the ISIL threat inside Syria, and Turkey has said themselves that that’s where the locus of their energy is going to be applied. We continue to have conversations with them about how best to bolster security in the region and to achieve a common objective here,” Kirby said.

Turkey is “a strong ally, a good partner in this fight, and we have no reason to doubt that they’re going to do exactly what they said they’re going to do,” the State Department spokesman added.

He explained there was no support from Washington for the PYD – the PKK’s extension in Syria – to carve out a Kurdish homeland in that country.

“There’s no support from in the coalition to do anything to change the territorial integrity of Syria. We’ve made that clear,” Kirby stressed.

“The only thing that – in terms of territory that we’re interested in changing is the territorial hold that ISIL has both in Iraq and in Syria, and we’ve made that clear,” Kirby emphasized.

“And everybody – anybody who is in the coalition and certainly anybody supporting the coalition, that’s the expectation. That’s what we’re focused on,” he said.