The U.S. is set to remove the $10 million bounty it had placed on de facto Syrian leader Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, the head of rebel group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), which led the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad earlier this month.
The decision follows meetings between U.S. diplomats and HTS in Damascus on Friday in which Jolani committed to ensuring terrorist groups in Syria do not pose a threat to the U.S. and its allies, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf said. The high-level U.S. delegation’s visit to the Syrian capital was the first such trip since the fall of the regime.
Leaf, who led the delegation, described the meetings with the interim government as “quite good, very productive,” and “detailed,” covering a wide range of issues both domestic and external. Leaf said Jolani himself came across as “pragmatic.”
“We’ve been hearing this for some time, some very pragmatic and moderate statements on various issues, from women’s rights to protection of, you know, equal rights for all communities, etc,” Leaf told reporters. “Again, it was a good first meeting. We will judge by deeds, not just by words. Deeds are the critical thing.”
The U.S. diplomats also stressed the Biden administration’s continued focus on determining the fate of detained or missing Americans in Syria including Austin Tice and Majd Kamalmaz. Roger Carstens, the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, who traveled to Damascus in 2020 for secret negotiations about Tice during the first Trump administration, was also part of the delegation. Carstens said the information available thus far does not confirm whether Tice, an American journalist who was abducted in Syria 12 years ago, is still alive.
“What I can tell you is this, the president the United States said recently that he believes Austin to be alive, and it’s our duty to keep pressing and pushing to see if we can find all the information that we possibly can, to get a sense of, with certainty by the way, what happened to him, where he is, and to bring him home,” Carstens told reporters following the meetings.
Carstens said the U.S. was focused on six particular prison sites where they believed there was a high possibility Tice had been held at one point or another, and that in the weeks ahead it will be the duty of the U.S. to search them thoroughly and “fine tune the evidence gathering in a way that only the FBI can do.”
In addition to HTS, the diplomats met with members of civil society, activists, members of different communities and other Syrians “about their vision for the future of their country and how the United States can help support them,” a State Department spokesperson said.
“We met with the quite heroic White Helmets to affirm our continued support for their life-saving efforts and tireless work to transform Syria for the better of all Syrians,” Leaf told reporters. “We also held a commemorative event to honor the tens of thousands, Syrians and non-Syrians alike, who were detained, tortured, forcibly disappeared or missing and who brutally perished at the hands of the former regime.”
Daniel Rubinstein, a senior adviser for the State Department’s Middle East bureau who will lead the department’s diplomatic engagement on Syria from Washington, said the U.S. hopes to have more regular diplomatic missions to Damascus.
“Obviously we need to look at the operational conditions,” Rubenstein said. “We were able to have a successful visit today, and we’re going to try to do them prudently and as frequently as practical.”
The U.S. delegation’s visit follows trips by diplomats from France, the U.K. and Germany to Damascus this week as Jolani calls for the lifting of international sanctions against HTS, which the U.S. has designated a terrorist group.
Current U.S. sanctions, including the terrorist designation, do not prevent the government from meeting or speaking with HTS, but they do restrict the provision of material support, creating complications for humanitarian aid groups working to assist both the refugees flooding back to Syria and those displaced within it for the last decade.
The Biden administration is exploring removing HTS from its terrorist list, NBC News has reported, but the administration has also laid out a list of conditions the group must meet before the United States would formally recognize the Syrian government.
“Our view is that when whatever government arises out of this transition, it needs to be inclusive, it needs to protect the rights of all Syrians, including women and minorities, like all governments, it needs to preserve critical state institutions and deliver essential services,” deputy State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said Thursday. “And perhaps most important, we want to see a Syria that does not pose a threat to its neighbors or the regions or being a place that’s going to serve as a base for terrorism or allying with groups like ISIS.”
