France to Stay in Syria After US Troops Ordered Home

TEHRAN (defapress)- Paris will maintain its participation in the coalition fighting Daesh terrorist group in Syria, a French government minister said Thursday after US President Donald Trump surprised Washington's allies by ordering American troops home.

News ID: 74458

Date: 20 December 2018 - 15:41

"For now of course we remain in Syria," France's European Affairs Minister Nathalie Loiseau said on CNews television, adding that "the fight against terrorism is not over", Daily Sabah reported.

"It's true that the coalition has made significant progress in Syria, but this fight continues, and we will continue it," she stated.

France has stationed fighters in Jordan and artillery along the Syrian border in Iraq as part of the US-led coalition, as well as an undisclosed number of special forces on the ground.

On Wednesday Trump said in a Twitter video that "We've won against ISIS", an English acronym for Daesh (or ISIL), and that it was time to bring the roughly 2,000 US soldiers fighting the terrorists home.

Its allies have warned the US that despite losing most of the territory it once controlled during the bloody Syrian war, the Daesh threat has not been totally eradicated.

French Defense Minister Florence Parly said on Twitter on Thursday that the group "has not been wiped of the map, nor have its roots".

"We must definitively defeat the last pockets of this terrorist organisation," she added.

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