Syria’s new management has pledged to help the U.S. in finding and repatriating lacking American residents, a U.S. envoy stated Sunday, marking a recent step towards enhancing strained relations between the 2 nations.
The announcement got here a day after the United States formally lifted sanctions on Syria, ending greater than a decade of diplomatic freeze.
Relations have steadily improved since former dictator Bashar Assad was overthrown in an anti-regime alliance in December.
“The new Syrian government has agreed to assist the USA in locating and returning USA citizens or their remains,” U.S. particular envoy for Syria Tom Barrack wrote on X, describing it as a “powerful step forward”.
“The families of Austin Tice, Majd Kamalmaz, and Kayla Mueller must have closure,” he added, referring to American residents who had gone lacking or been killed throughout Syria’s devastating civil warfare that erupted in 2011.
Tice was working as a contract journalist for Agence France-Presse, The Washington Post, and different shops when he was detained at a checkpoint in August 2012.
Kamalmaz, a Syrian-American psychotherapist, was believed to have died after being detained below the Assad authorities in 2017.
Mueller was an support employee kidnapped by the Daesh terrorist group, which introduced her dying in February 2015, saying she was killed in a Jordanian airstrike, a declare disputed by U.S. authorities.
“President (Donald) Trump has made it clear that bringing home USA citizens or honoring, with dignity, their remains is a major priority everywhere,” stated Barrack, who additionally serves because the U.S. ambassador to Türkiye.
“The new Syrian Government will aid us in this commitment,” he added.
Americans killed by Daesh
A Syrian supply conscious of the talks between the 2 nations informed AFP there have been 11 different names on Washington’s checklist, all of them Syrian Americans.
The supply added {that a} Qatari delegation started this month, at Washington’s request, a search mission for the stays of American hostages killed by Daesh.
Britain-based warfare monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, in the meantime, stated that “the Qatari delegation is still searching in Aleppo province for the bodies of American citizens executed by IS (Daesh).”
Two U.S. journalists, James Foley and Stephen Sotloff, had been videotaped in 2014 being beheaded by a terrorist, who spoke on digital camera with a British accent.
El Shafee Elsheikh, a terrorist from London, was discovered responsible in 2022 of hostage-taking and conspiracy to homicide U.S. residents – Foley and Sotloff, in addition to support employees Peter Kassig and Kayla Mueller.
The formal lifting of U.S. sanctions additionally coincided with Syria’s new authorities reshuffling their Interior Ministry to incorporate preventing cross-border drug and folks smuggling, as they search to enhance ties with the West.
The lifting of sanctions paves the way in which for reconstruction efforts within the war-torn nation, the place authorities are counting on overseas help to assist foot the huge price of rebuilding.
Syria’s Foreign Ministry on Saturday welcomed the U.S. lifting of sanctions, calling the transfer “a positive step in the right direction to reduce humanitarian and economic struggles in the country.”
The sanctions aid extends to the brand new authorities provided that Syria doesn’t present a secure haven for terrorist organizations and ensures safety for spiritual and ethnic minorities, the U.S. Treasury Department stated.
Trump met with Syria’s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa earlier this month throughout a go to to Saudi Arabia.
Source: www.dailysabah.com