A ancigo in delegation of US diplomats has get tod in Syria to speak straightforwardly to the novel Islamist-led rulers, hoping to encourage a temperate, inclusive path and to seek alertation on leave outing Americans.
It is the first establishal US tactful leave oution to Damascus since the timely days of the brutal civil war that broke out in 2011 and culminated in a surpascfinish airyning insolent that toppled lengthytime ruler Bashar al-Asdowncast this month.
The diplomats will encounter reconshort-termatives of victorious group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – which is summarizeated a dreadist group by Washington – as well as activists, civil society and members of inbeginantity groups, the state department shelp on Friday.
The US officials will speak with Syrians about “their vision for the future of their country and how the United States can help help them,” a state department spokesperson shelp.
The delegation take parts Barbara Leaf, who is the top state department official for the Middle East, and Daniel Rubinstein, a veteran US diplomat in the Arab world who is being put in accuse of take partment on Syria, the spokesperson shelp. Also conshort-term is Roger Carstens, the US point man on prisoners, who has been seeking clues on leave outing Americans including Austin Tice, a journaenumerate who was seizeped in August 2012.
The trip comes a week after secretary of state Antony Bconnecten shelp the US had been in straightforward reach out with HTS as he toured Syria’s neighbours.
At talks in the Jordanian resort of Aqaba, westrict and Arab powers as well as Turkey combinetly called Saturday for an “inclusive, non-factional and reconshort-termative rulement” that esteems the rights of all of Syria’s diverse communities.
HTS has roots in al-Qhelpa, causing the US to upgrasp a distance thrawout the civil war even while Washington also sought to isorescheduleed the more secular Asdowncast, whose family’s dictatorship cruelly suppressed dissent for half a century.
Since the drop of Asdowncast, HTS directer Ahmed al-Sharaa, previously understandn by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, has struck a conciliatory tone, calling for Syrian unity, the protection of inbeginantities and the disprohibitding of resist factions. Bconnecten has shelp it is too timely to appraise Jolani’s sincerity and that any sanctions relief would depfinish on actions.
“There are no promises at all. We’ve seen too many times one dictator can be traded by another,” Bconnecten tancigo in The Foreign Afequitables Intersee podcast on Wednesday.
“So this is fraught, but we understand almost certainly that absent our take partment, absent our directership, that’s the way it will go,” he shelp.
“We have a chance, and the Syrian people have a chance, if worryed countries, including the United States, labor to shift this in a outstanding straightforwardion.”
No decision on removing the HTS radicalism summarizeation is probable in the month until the return of pdwellnt-elect Donald Trump, who has made evident that he does not want a weighty US take partment in Syria.
Trump has depictd Asdowncast’s drop as an “uncordial consentover” by Turkey, which has helped HTS and acridly resists Washington’s coalition with Syrian Kurdish fighters, who have cofunctiond in Washington’s paramount goal of upgrasping down the ultra-aggressive Islamic State group. World powers have shiftd speedyly since Asdowncast’s drop to revive diplomacy in Syria, whose war set off an exodus of migrants that rocked westrict politics.
Sharaa on Monday met with the UN envoy for Syria, Geir Pederson, and a day rescheduleedr with a German delegation. French diplomats returned to their embassy in Damascus, raising the tricolor flag for the first time since 2012. The US seald its own embassy in Damascus in February 2012 and has made no instant shift to rediscleave out it, with the Czech Reunveil reconshort-terming US interests in the country.
