Global Courant 2023-05-05 21:04:03
Washington “does not support” pressure to normalize ties with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government, the State Department says.
Washington, DC – The United States will not normalize relations with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government, the State Department has said, as many of Washington’s Arab allies reestablish ties with Damascus.
The State Department said late Thursday that top US diplomat Antony Blinken discussed a recent meeting in Amman between Syria and its Arab neighbors during a phone call with his Jordanian counterpart, Ayman Safadi.
“Secretary Blinken has made it clear that the United States will not normalize relations with the Assad regime and will not support others to normalize until there is authentic UN-facilitated political progress in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 2254.” , the department said.
The 2015 resolution calls for free and fair elections in Syria under UN supervision.
The foreign ministers of Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Jordan met for talks in the Jordanian capital on Monday amid an effort to bring al-Assad’s government back into the Arab fold.
Syria was suspended from the Arab League in 2011 and expelled by regional power brokers after cracking down on Arab Spring protests, which turned into a protracted war. The conflict has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced millions of people.
As the Syrian government regained control of large parts of the country – with the support of Iran and Russia – some Arab countries began to soften their attitude towards Damascus.
However, the US has maintained that it would not change its opposition to al-Assad without a comprehensive political solution to the conflict.
The State Department said on Thursday that Blinken expressed gratitude to Jordan for “receiving refugees and reinforced the US position that Syria must create conditions, including greatly improved respect for human rights, that would motivate refugees to live in a safe, return voluntarily and with dignity.”
Earlier this week, Blinken said the US was “engaged” with the Syrian government to secure the release of Austin Tice, an American journalist who disappeared in Syria in 2012. US officials have accused the Syrian government of holding Tice, a claim Damascus has made. refused.
“We are working intensively with Austin – involved in Syria, involved with third countries – looking for a way to get him home. And we won’t budge until we do,” Blinken said on Wednesday.
Because the US does not recognize al-Assad’s government as legitimate, it was not clear how the alleged direct talks between Washington and Damascus took place.
In recent months, relations between Syria and several Arab countries have warmed. In February, Egypt’s foreign minister visited Damascus for the first time since 2011, and last month Saudi Arabia’s top diplomat also traveled to the Syrian capital and met al-Assad.
The rapprochement came about during a Chinese-brokered detente between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
The Syrian government remains subject to heavy US sanctions aimed at economically isolating the country in response to widely documented human rights violations.
While the US has said it is discouraging its allies from normalizing ties with Syria, it has not penalized countries moving closer to al-Assad’s government.
The United Arab Emirates, a key US partner in the Gulf region, reopened their embassy in Damascus in 2018, and last year it became the first Arab state to take in al-Assad since the war began more than a decade ago.
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