US says it will not normalize relations with Syria’s Assad

Washington “does not support” the push to normalize ties with the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the State Department says.

Washington D.C. – The United States will not normalize relations with the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the State Department has said, as many of Washington’s Arab allies restore ties with Damascus.

The State Department said Thursday night that senior 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 made it clear that the United States will not normalize relations with the Assad regime and will not support normalization by others until there is genuine UN-facilitated political progress in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution ( UNSCR) 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 a push to return al-Assad’s government to the Arab fold.

Syria was suspended from the arab league and ostracized by regional powerhouses in 2011 after their crackdown on Arab Spring protests, which escalated into a protracted war. The conflict has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced millions.

As the Syrian government regained control of much of the country, with support from Iran and Russia, some Arab countries began to soften their stance towards Damascus.

However, the United States has maintained that it would not change its opposition to al-Assad without an inclusive political solution to the conflict.

The State Department said Thursday that Blinken expressed gratitude to Jordan for “hosting refugees and reinforced the United States’ position that Syria must create conditions, including much greater respect for human rights, that encourage refugees to return from safe, voluntary and dignified manner”. ”.

Earlier this week, Blinken said the United States was “engaged” with the Syrian government to secure the release of Austin Tice, an American journalist who went missing in Syria in 2012. American officials accused the Syrian government of detaining Tice, a claim that Damascus has denied.

“We are very committed to Austin, committed to Syria, committed to third countries, looking to find a way to bring him home. And we’re not going to budge until we do,” Blinken said Wednesday.

Because the United States does not recognize the al-Assad government as legitimate, it was not clear how the alleged direct discussions between Washington and Damascus were taking place.

In recent months, relations have heated up between Syria and several Arab countries. In February, the Egyptian Foreign Minister visited damascus for the first time since 2011, and last month, Saudi Arabia’s top diplomat also made a trip to the Syrian capital and met al-Assad.

The rapprochement came amid a Chinese-brokered détente between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

The Syrian government remains under strong US sanctions designed to economically isolate the country in response to widely documented human rights violations.

While the United States has said it discourages allies from normalizing ties with Syria, it has not penalized countries that reach out to al-Assad’s government.

The United Arab Emirates, a key US partner in the Gulf region, reopened its embassy in Damascus in 2018, and last year became the first Arab state to host al-Assad since the start of the war more than a decade ago.