US diplomats and hostage envoy in Syria on first visit since Assad ouster
WASHINGTON — The first US diplomats to visit Syria since the ouster of President Bashar Assad earlier this month are now in Damascus to hold talks with the country’s new leaders and seek information on the whereabouts of missing American journalist Austin Tice.
Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf, former Special Envoy for Syria Daniel Rubinstein and the Biden administration’s chief envoy for hostage negotiations, Roger Carstens, made the trip for talks with Syria’s interim leadersthe State Department said early Friday.
The team is also the first group of US diplomats to formally visit Syria in more than a decade since the US closed its embassy in Damascus in 2012.
“They will engage directly with the Syrian people, including civil society members, activists, members of diverse communities and other Syrian voices, about their vision for their country’s future and how the United States can help support them,” said the state. Department said.
At the top of their agenda will be information about Tice, who went missing in Syria in 2012. And they will push the principles of inclusion, protection of minorities and a rejection of terrorism and chemical weapons that the Biden administration says they will. critical to any U.S. support for a new administration.
The The US has redoubled its efforts to find Tice and return him home, saying officials have communicated with the rebels who ousted Assad’s government about the American journalist. Carstens previously traveled to Lebanon to look for information.
Tice, whose work has been published by The Washington Post, McClatchy newspapers and others, disappeared at a checkpoint in a disputed area west of Damascus as the Syrian civil war intensified.
A video released weeks after Tice went missing showed him blindfolded and held down by armed men saying, “Oh, Jesus.” Nothing has been heard from him since. Assad’s government publicly denied it that it held him.
The rebel group that spearheaded the attack on Damascus that forced Assad to flee — Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS — has been labeled a foreign terrorist organization by the United States and others. While this designation comes with a slew of sanctions, it does not prohibit U.S. officials from speaking to their members or leaders.
The State Department said Rubinstein, Leaf and Carstens would meet with HTS officials, but did not say whether the group’s leader Ahmad al-Sharaawho once had ties to al-Qaeda is said to be among those they see.
U.S. officials say al-Sharaa’s public statements on protecting the rights of minorities and women are welcome, but they remain skeptical about whether he will follow through in the long term.
The US has not had a formal diplomatic presence in Syria since 2012, when it suspended embassy operations in Damascus during the civil war, although there are US troops in small parts of Syria involved in the fight against the Islamic State militant group .
The Pentagon announced this on Thursday The US had doubled the number of forces in Syria to fight IS before the fall of Assad. The US has also significantly increased airstrikes on IS targets over concerns that a power vacuum would allow the militant group to reconstitute itself.
The diplomats’ visit to Damascus will not result in the immediate reopening of the US embassy, which is under the protection of the Czech government, according to US officials, who said decisions on diplomatic recognition will be made when the new Syrian authorities clarify their intentions make known. clearly.