According to the newspaper, the decision was made a month ago after Trump’s talks with CIA Director Mike Pompeo and national security adviser Herbert Raymond McMaster.
"The decision reflects the Trump administration’s stance that the removal of Assad is not a US priority," the report read.
Trump initially pledged to change the parameters of the US policy during his campaign. However, on April 6, the Pentagon launched a massive missile strike at a Syrian governmental military airfield in Ash Sha’irat in response to an alleged chemical weapon attack in Syria’s Idlib province.
However, Israeli Middle East analyst Avigdor Eskin suggested that Trump in fact made a very important decision on Syria, hiding behind the façade of hawkish rhetoric.
"Using the smoke screen of militarist rhetoric [following the missile strike], the US President made one the most important decisions to resolve the Syrian crisis. Now, we can better understand the efficiency of a cease-fire in south Syria. As soon as the Syrian rebels realized that US support would come to an end soon, their combat enthusiasm immediately started exhaling," Eskin wrote in an analytical piece for RIA Novosti.
According to Eskin, what is crucial now is that having rolled back support for the Syrian rebels the US stopped "adding more fuel to the fire" of the Syrian conflict.
Moreover, the analyst pointed out that Russia’s efforts played a key role in making a cease-fire possible in south Syria.
"The latest developments prove that Russia’s policy in Syria has been reasonable and far-seeing. Actually, Washington policymakers also admit that. Despite all odds, Russia-US joint efforts paved the way for the Syrian settlement," Eskin concluded.
