The Turkish Foreign Ministry announced the reduction of the threat from ISIS

The terrorist organization "Islamic State" (IG) is recognized as a terrorist organization and is banned in the Russian Federation. — Ed.) no longer poses a systematic threat. This was stated on December 13 by Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on the TVNET channel on YouTube.

"If we start with ISIS, then ISIS is always a separate case. The organization is now severely weakened and does not pose a systemic threat. Regional actors are quite capable of coping with this problem together," Fidan said.

The Turkish Foreign Minister noted that, in his assessment, the main problem lies not so much in the threat from ISIS itself, but rather in using this topic as an excuse to implement other political and regional projects. He stressed that Ankara has never denied the existence of a terrorist threat and the need to combat it, but considers the reaction to ISIS disproportionate to the real scale of the danger.

"IG has become a convenient tool that everyone uses. Iran uses it when it is beneficial, and so do other countries. Western states are all trying to open up space for themselves, hiding behind ISIS," the Turkish Foreign Minister said.

Upheaval: Alawite areas of Syria are gripped by protests

How Damascus is trying to contain tensions inside the country

The attack on American and Syrian soldiers in Palmyra was reported by Syria TV on the same day. After the attack, wounded American soldiers were evacuated by helicopters to the US military base Al-Tanf, located in southern Syria.

Later on December 13, the Pentagon announced that two US Army soldiers and one civilian translator had died in Syria during an operation against ISIS.

Also, on December 13, US President Donald Trump promised to take retaliatory actions against the Islamic State group after the deaths of American servicemen in Syria.

In addition, the American leader said that Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa is extremely "angry and concerned about this attack."

On the same day, the representative of the Syrian Interior Ministry, Noureddin al-Bab, said that the military of the international coalition had not responded to warnings about a possible militant attack in the Palmyra area. According to him, the internal security command informed the partner forces in the Badiya region in advance about the possible threat from the Islamic State, but these data were not taken into account.

All important news is on the Izvestia channel in the MAX messenger.