French President Emmanuel Macron speaks during a press conference at the end of an EU Summit in Brussels, Belgium, on Dec. 14, 2018. (Xinhua/Ye Pingfan)
PARIS, Feb. 26 (Xinhua) -- French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday endorsed the United States reversal on keeping a small proportion of U.S. troops in Syria after the planned pullout.
"On the U.S. decision, I can only but welcome this choice ... The U.S. decision is a good thing," Macron told reporters.
"That responds to the need to stay with the SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces, an Arab-Kurdish alliance) and those who, on the ground, have worked to fight against the Islamic State," he said.
Macron also pledged to "continue to operate in the region within the coalition".
Last Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump said a small fraction of U.S. forces would remain in Syria with troops from other countries.
According to U.S. media reports, citing a senior administration official, the U.S. would keep about 400 troops in two different regions of Syria.
In December 2018, Trump decided to pull out about 2,000 troops from the Arab country, saying that the terrorist cell has been defeated.
Despite Washington's decision, Macron, on Jan. 17, said France would carry out its military offensive against the Islamic State fighters in Syria this year. He, then, warned that "any rush to withdraw (troops) would be a mistake".
France was one of the first European countries to join the international coalition against the IS. Its fighter jets bombed the group in Iraq in 2014 and then IS targets in Syria a year later.
Around 1,000 French troops including special forces have been based in the north of the country, and deployed alongside local Kurdish and Arab forces.
