U.S. Diplomats And Hostage Envoy Visit Syria Seeking Information On Austin Tice | EUROtoday

WASHINGTON (AP) — The first U.S. diplomats to go to Syria since President Bashar Assad’s ouster earlier this month at the moment are in Damascus to carry talks with the nation’s new leaders and search info on the whereabouts of lacking American journalist Austin Tice.

Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf, former particular envoy for Syria Daniel Rubinstein and the Biden administration’s chief envoy for hostage negotiations, Roger Carstens, made the journey for talks with Syria’s interim leaders, the State Department mentioned early Friday.

The crew can be the primary group of American diplomats to formally go to Syria in additional than a decade because the U.S. shuttered its embassy in Damascus in 2012.

“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 mentioned.

At the highest of their agenda might be details about Tice, who went lacking in Syria in 2012. And they’ll push the ideas of inclusion, safety of minorities and a rejection of terrorism and chemical weapons that the Biden administration says might be essential for any U.S. help for a brand new authorities.

The U.S. has redoubled efforts to search out Tice and return him residence, saying officers have communicated with the rebels who ousted Assad’s authorities concerning the American journalist. Carstens traveled beforehand to Lebanon to hunt info.

Tice, who has had his work revealed by The Washington Post, McClatchy newspapers and others, disappeared at a checkpoint in a contested space west of Damascus because the Syrian civil conflict intensified.

A video launched weeks after Tice went lacking confirmed him blindfolded and held by armed males and saying, “Oh, Jesus.” He has not been heard from since. Assad’s authorities publicly denied that it was holding him.

The insurgent group that spearheaded the assault on Damascus that compelled Assad to flee — Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS — is designated a overseas terrorist group by the United States and others. While that designation comes with a raft of sanctions, it doesn’t prohibit U.S. officers from chatting with its members or leaders.

The State Department mentioned Rubinstein, Leaf and Carstens would meet with HTS officers however didn’t say if the group’s chief Ahmad al-Sharaa, who was as soon as aligned with al-Qaida, could be amongst these they see.

U.S. officers say al-Sharaa’s public statements about defending minority and ladies’s rights are welcomed, however they continue to be skeptical that he’ll observe by on them in the long term.

The U.S. has not had a proper diplomatic presence in Syria since 2012, when it suspended operations at its embassy in Damascus throughout the nation’s civil conflict, though there are U.S. troops in small elements of Syria engaged within the combat in opposition to the Islamic State militant group.

The Pentagon revealed Thursday that the U.S. had doubled the variety of its forces in Syria to combat IS earlier than Assad’s fall. The U.S. additionally has considerably stepped up airstrikes in opposition to IS targets over concern {that a} energy vacuum would permit the militant group to reconstitute itself.

The diplomats’ go to to Damascus won’t consequence within the fast reopening of the U.S. embassy, which is below the safety of the Czech authorities, in keeping with U.S. officers, who mentioned selections on diplomatic recognition might be made when the brand new Syrian authorities make their intentions clear.