Washington is currently using cards at its disposal to gradually pressure Moscow to remove Iranian organized and non-organized forces from Syria. This issue appears to be a main demand of the current US foreign policy. “The administration of US President Donald Trump has finalized its decision and chosen to keep its military personnel in the northeast of Syria and in the no-fly zone established by the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS,” western diplomatic sources told Asharq Al-Awsat It will use those choices, in addition to the two cards of Syria’s reconstruction and return of refugees, to exert pressure on Russia to kick Iran out of Syria, they added. This issue was one of the files proposed by US national security adviser John Bolton during his meeting Thursday with head of Russias Security Council Nikolai Patrushev in Geneva, the first such high-level meeting between US and Russian officials since Trump’s meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Helsinki. Bolton said Patrushev proposed that the White House put off sanctions on Iran’s oil sector in exchange for a rollback of Iranian forces in Syria. “That was a suggestion we had rejected before and we rejected it again today. The sanctions are coming back into effect. That’s clear,” he stressed. A White House official told Reuters last week that Trump and Putin agreed in Helsinki on the need to remove Iranian forces from Syria. On Thursday, the Bolton-Patrushev meeting failed to come out with a joint statement on Syria despite efforts by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his US counterpart Mike Pompeo. However, the two sides agreed that contacts would continue between the defense ministries of both countries.