WASHINGTON — Senior U.S. officers arrived in Damascus on Friday for the primary diplomatic mission to the Syrian capital for the reason that fall of dictator Bashar al-Assad this month.
The U.S. delegation, led by Barbara Leaf, the senior State Department official for the Middle East, is anticipated to satisfy with members of the Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) insurgent group, in response to a State Department spokesperson. The group is performing because the de facto government in Syria.
Those discussions are anticipated to concentrate on expectations for a transition to an inclusive Syrian authorities and the “hope to uncover details about the destiny of Austin Tice, Majd Kamalmaz, and different American residents who disappeared beneath the Assad regime,” the spokesperson mentioned in a press release.
Roger Carstens, the particular presidential envoy for hostage affairs, who traveled to Damascus in 2020 for secret negotiations about Tice throughout the first Trump administration, can be part of the delegation.
In addition to HTS, the diplomats will meet with members of civil society, activists, members of various communities and different Syrians “about their imaginative and prescient for the way forward for their nation and the way the United States may also help assist them,” the spokesperson mentioned.
Daniel Rubinstein, a senior adviser for the State Department’s Middle East bureau, will lead the division’s diplomatic engagement on Syria, in response to the spokesperson, and can “have interaction instantly with the Syrian folks and key events in Syria and coordinate with allies and companions.”
Since Assad’s ouster, the Biden administration has come beneath rising stress to place U.S. personnel on the ground to take part within the search for Tice, who was kidnapped in Syria 12 years in the past.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken mentioned Thursday the United States was in contact with “each doable actor who would possibly be capable of get data. And this entails anybody and everybody who has some relationship with the totally different rising authorities in Syria.”
“Any piece of data we get, any lead we’ve, we’re following it. We have methods of doing that regardless of precisely the place we’re,” Blinken mentioned in an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “And I can simply let you know that that is the No. 1 precedence is to get Austin.”
The U.S. delegation’s go to follows visits by diplomats from France, the U.Okay. and Germany to Damascus this week because the chief of HTS, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, requires the lifting of worldwide sanctions on him and the insurgent group.
HTS stays a U.S.-designated terrorist group with a $10 million bounty on Jolani. The sanctions don’t stop the U.S. delegation from assembly or talking with HTS, nevertheless it restricts the availability of fabric assist creating problems for humanitarian assist teams working to help each the refugees flooding again to their dwelling nation and people displaced inside it for the final decade.
The Biden administration is exploring eradicating HTS from its terrorist record, NBC News has reported, however the administration has additionally laid out a listing of situations it should meet earlier than the United States would formally acknowledge the Syrian authorities.
“Our view is that when no matter authorities arises out of this transition, it must be inclusive, it wants to guard the rights of all Syrians, together with ladies and minorities, like all governments, it must protect vital state establishments and ship important companies,” deputy State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel mentioned Thursday. “And maybe most vital, we wish to see a Syria that doesn’t pose a risk to its neighbors or the areas or being a spot that’s going to function a base for terrorism or allying with teams like ISIS.”
