AQABA, Jordan (AP) — American officials have been in direct contact with the terrorist-designated rebel group that led the overthrow of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Saturday.
Blinken, speaking at a news conference in Jordan, was the first US official to publicly confirm contacts between the Biden administration and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, which led a coalition of armed opposition groups that drove Assad from power and into asylum in Russia earlier this month.
Along with counterparts from eight Arab nations and Turkey as well as senior officials from the European Union and United Nations, Blinken signed off on a set of principles meant to guide Syria’s transition to a peaceful, nonsectarian and inclusive country.
Blinken would not discuss details of the direct contacts with HTS but said it was important for the US to convey messages to the group about its conduct and how it intends to govern in a transition period.
“Yes, we have been in contact with HTS and with other parties,” Blinken said in the port city of Aqaba. He added that “our message to the Syrian people is this: We want them to succeed and we’re prepared to help them do so.”
HTS, once an affiliate of al-Qaida, has been designed as a foreign terrorist organization by the US State Department since 2018. That designation carries severe sanctions, including a ban on the provision of any “material support” to the group or its members.
The sanctions do not, however, legally bar US officials from communicating with designated groups.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group’s chief Abu Mohammed al-Julani checks the damage following an earthquake in the village of Besnaya in Syria’s rebel-held northwestern Idlib province at the border with Turkey, on February 7, 2023. (Omar HAJ KADOUR / AFP)
In an interview Saturday on Syrian television, the group’s leader, Ahmad al-Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Mohammed al-Julani, did not address any direct contact with the United States, but said the new authorities in Damascus are in touch with Western embassies.
He also said that “we don’t intend to enter any conflict because there is general exhaustion in Syria.”
HTS has worked to establish security and start a political transition after seizing Damascus and has tried to reassure a public both stunned by Assad’s fall and concerned about extremist jihadis among the rebels. Insurgent leaders claim the group has broken with its extremist past.
Blinken also stressed that “the success that we’ve had in ending the territorial caliphate” of the Islamic State terror group (ISIS) remains “a critical mission.” And citing the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, the Kurdish fighters who in recent years drove ISIS out of large areas of Syria, he called it ”very important at this moment that they continue that role because this is a moment of instability” in which ISIS “will seek to regroup and take advantage of.”
A joint statement after the meeting of foreign ministers urged all parties to cease hostilities in Syria and expressed support for a locally led transitional political process. It called for preventing the reemergence of extremist groups and ensuring the security and safe destruction of chemical weapons stockpiles.
A Syrian fighter holds a gun with a flower placed in the barrel, as residents visit the ancient Aleppo Citadel in the old city of Aleppo, Syria, December 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)
“We don’t want Syria to fall into chaos,” Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, told journalists.
A separate statement by Arab foreign ministers called for UN-supervised elections based on a new constitution approved by Syrians.
Their statement condemned Israel’s incursion into the buffer zone with Syria and adjacent sites over the past week as a “heinous occupation” and demanded the withdrawal of Israeli forces. Israel says the move was necessary to ensure no jihadist fighters enter the buffer zone and threaten Israeli territory from it, adding that armed fighters were nearing and attacked UN forces stationed near the border.
US officials say al-Sharaa has been making welcomed comments about protecting minority and women’s rights but they remain skeptical that he will follow through on them in the long run.
On Friday, the rebels and Syria’s unarmed opposition worked to safely turn over to US officials an American man who had been imprisoned by Assad.
US officials are continuing their search for Austin Tice, an American journalist who disappeared 12 years ago near Damascus. “We have impressed upon everyone we’ve been in contact with the importance of helping find Austin Tice and bringing him home,” Blinken said.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
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