The first US diplomats to visit Syria since Bashar al Assad’s ouster 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 interimleaders, the State Department said early Friday.
“They will be engaging directly with the Syrian people, including members of civil society, activists, members of different communities, and other Syrian voices about their vision for the future of their country and how the United States can help support them,” 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 will be critical for any US support for a new government.
The US has redoubled 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 travelled previously to Lebanon to seek information.
Tice, who has had his work published by The Washington Post, McClatchy newspapers and others, disappeared at a checkpoint in a contested area west of Damascus as the Syrian civil war intensified.
A video released weeks after Tice went missing showed him blindfolded and held by armed men. Assad's government publicly denied that it was holding him.
The group that spearheaded the assault on Damascus that forced Assad to flee — Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS — is designated a foreign terrorist organisation by the United States and others. While that designation comes with a raft of sanctions, it does not prohibit US officials from speaking to its members or leaders.
The State Department said Rubinstein, Leaf and Carstens would meet with HTS officials, including its leader Ahmad al-Sharaa.
The US has not had a formal diplomatic presence in Syria since 2012, when it suspended operations at its embassy in Damascus during the country’s civil war, although there are US troops in small parts of Syria engaged in the fight against Daesh.
The Pentagon revealed Thursday that the US had doubled the number of its forces in Syria to fight Daesh before Assad’s fall.
US forces are present in many bases and military points in the regions occupied by the YPG/PYD, which is an extension of the PKK, a group recognised as a terrorist organisation by both Türkiye and the US.
Washington frequently sends reinforcements to its military bases and points in the oil fields controlled by PKK/YPG terrorists, citing the fight against Daesh as justification.
