US issues demands to new Syrian government in exchange for sanctions relief

Six people with knowledge of the situation told Reuters that the US has given Syria a list of requirements that it wants Damascus to fulfill in exchange for partial sanctions, including ensuring foreigners are not serving in top government positions.

According to two of the attendees, a US official and a Syrian source with knowledge of the situation, Natasha Franceschi, the US’s deputy assistant secretary for the levant and Syria, gave the list of demands to Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani at an in-person meeting on March 18 in Brussels.

The list and the in-person meeting, which are the first high-level direct exchanges between Damascus and Washington since US President Donald Trump’s election on January 20, have not previously been reported.

Two US officials, a Syrian source, a regional diplomat, and two Washington-based sources with knowledge of the situation were among the six people Reuters spoke with for this story. To discuss the high-level diplomacy, they all requested anonymity.

According to two US officials, the Syrian source, and both sources in Washington, Syria’s destruction of any remaining chemical weapons stores and cooperation in “counterterrorism” are among the demands made by the US.

According to the US officials and a source in Washington, another requirement was to ensure that foreign fighters were not appointed to senior positions in Syria’s governing body.

Syria has already appointed a number of foreign ex-rebels, including Turks, Jordanians, and Uyghurs, to its defense ministry, which alarmed foreign governments.

According to the two US officials and both sources in Washington, Washington also requested that Syria appoint a liaison to assist US efforts to locate Austin Tice, a journalist who went missing in Syria more than a decade ago.

Washington would offer some sanctions relief in exchange for fulfilling all the demands, according to all six sources. The sources claimed Washington did not give a specific date for the fulfillment of the conditions, and that no specific relief would be offered.

The US Department of State and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Syria did not respond to requests for comment.

In a bid to oust former dictator Bashar al-Assad, the US, the UK, and Europe placed severe sanctions on people, businesses, and entire sectors of Syria’s economy in an effort to stifle the country’s economy, which is desperately in desperate need of sanctions relief.

Some of those sanctions have had a temporary, limiting effect suspension. In January, the US granted Qatar a six-month general license to facilitate the flow of humanitarian aid, but Qatar was unable to use Syria’s central bank to pay for public sector salaries.

Following al-Assad’s toppling by a lightning rebel offensive in December, Syrian officials, including al-Shaibani and interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa, have demanded that sanctions be fully lifted.

A work in progress policy

The Trump administration’s policy toward Syria has been most clearly demonstrated by the demands’ delivery.

Concerning the future of sanctions and whether US forces will remain stationed in the northeast, US statements have focused on supporting minorities and condemning “Islamist extremism.”

That is in part due to Washington’s different opinions on how to approach Syria. According to diplomats and US sources who are aware of the policymaking process, some White House officials have been eager to adopt a more harsh stance, citing the new Syrian leadership’s prior ties to al-Qaeda as a justification for limiting engagement.

According to the sources, the State Department is pursuing a more nuanced view of Syria, including potential engagement points.

The conflicted words of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio caused heated debate between the White House and the State Department earlier this month regarding the statement denouncing violence in western Syria, where hundreds of civilians from the Alawite minority were killed by armed loyalists to the former regime.

Rubio called for Syria’s interim authorities to hold responsible the “radical Islamist terrorists, including foreign jihadis,” who carried out the violence.

According to sources with knowledge of the process, the White House pushed for a more jarring statement while the State Department resisted to add more balance.

Israel was reportedly working with the US to keep Syria weak and decentralized, according to a Reuters report from last month.

Source: Aljazeera