The United States intends to retain control over the oil fields in Syria’s northeast, despite scaling down its military presence in the area, US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday.

Axar.az reports citing Sputnik.

“We have our troops out of there, and we will be bringing a lot of them back home, but again we are keeping the oil”, Trump said at the beginning of his meeting with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The statement comes after a US military convoy was reportedly positioned near several oil deposits in north-eastern Syria.

About 90 percent of Syria’s oil reserves are concentrated east of the Euphrates River, which was previously a stronghold and the main source of income for Daesh terrorists, and is now mainly controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Turkish media earlier cited eyewitnesses as saying that US forces have already begun construction of two military bases in strategic locations in Syria’s oil-rich east.