US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said on Tuesday that the United States will let Israel determine its security and military objectives behind its intensive strikes on Syria since the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime last Sunday.

“I will leave it to Israel to talk about its own operations and what it is trying to achieve, but I will say that on behalf of the United States, we will discuss these matters with them privately before I express my opinion on them publicly,” Miller said in response to a question from Al-Quds correspondent in Washington about the US administration’s disregard for the ongoing Israeli aggression, which has destroyed more than 80% of Syria’s military capabilities. “I would say that in general, we certainly do not want to see any measures that make the Syrian-led operation more difficult, and we ultimately want to see a peaceful process moving forward, not an escalation of the conflict.”

In response to a question from the Al-Quds correspondent about whether the reason behind this was to create disarmed states in Syria, he said that the United States wants a united and peaceful Syria for all its citizens.

“With respect to the location of the Israeli forces — and I’m not testifying to that one way or the other — I know there are conflicting claims about where they are, and they have vehemently denied that they are near Damascus. They have said they are in the buffer zone, and I spoke about that at length yesterday, but when it comes to their operations, I think it’s appropriate for us to talk to them privately first, to see what they are doing, before we express our opinion on it publicly. They are close allies of ours and that’s what we will do.”

“We have set out the principles that we believe should guide Syria moving forward,” Miller said. “Beyond that, there are questions for the Syrian people to answer regarding what kind of government they intend to form, what kind of army they intend to maintain. And when it comes to the actions that Israel has taken in the last 24 hours, as I said, let’s have those conversations with them privately.”

Miller reiterated in response to a question from the Jerusalem correspondent regarding the occupation of Quneitra, saying: “What precipitated their move to the buffer zone was the withdrawal of the Syrian armed forces, which, as I said yesterday, creates a potential vacuum that could be filled by any of the many terrorist organizations that continue to operate inside Syria and that have sworn to destroy the State of Israel.”

Miller also stated that “there is no legal impediment to us talking to a specific terrorist group” such as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the group that led the assault on Damascus and whose leader, Abu Mohammed al-Julani, was an official in both ISIS and al-Qaeda.

The US has now shown a surprising interest in removing HTS from its list as a designated terrorist organization, with Politico reporting that there is now a “heated debate in Washington” over whether the group should be removed from the list immediately. In a way, I doubt the debate is truly “heated.”