WASHINGTON DC - A member of the United States Congress said on Thursday that Americans do not want extremist groups in control of Syria now that the war-torn country has a chance to embrace democracy. "I always worry about power vacuums. We have seen this come up in the Middle East before where terrorist groups take over. And we want to see every community in Syria protected and we don't want to see extremist groups take over a country that has a chance of moving toward democracy and fairness," Congresswoman Kim Schrier told Rudaw. The recent deadly violence in western Syria drew the ire of the Trump administration. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday slammed "radical Islamist terrorists" for committing "massacres" against minorities in Syria and called on the new leadership in Damascus to hold the perpetrators accountable. But Washington has endorsed the agreement between the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and Damascus that could give Kurds a key role in the new government. Paul Davis is a professor at the Institute of World Politics. "The US is for the agreement. The US wants Syria to be taken out of the equation within the region. And a solid agreement between Damascus and the Kurdish forces would go a long way to that. It's just a problem is, it's a matter of trust. I mean, obviously, what's going on with the Alawite massacre right now is not a good sign for the Kurds," he said.
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