AQABA, Jordan: The United States has made “direct contact” with Syria’s victorious Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham militants despite designating the group as terrorists, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Saturday, as he sought international unity on a peaceful transition.
“We’ve been in contact with HTS and with other parties,” Blinken told reporters after talks on Syria in the Jordanian Red Sea resort of Aqaba.
He did not give details on how the contact took place but when asked if the United States reached out directly, he said: “Direct contact — yes.”
Blinken said that the contact was partly related to the search for Austin Tice, the US journalist kidnapped in 2012 near the start of the brutal civil war.
“We have pressed upon everyone we’ve been in contact with the importance of helping find Austin Tice and bringing him home,” Blinken said.
He said that in the dialogue with HTS the United States also “shared the principles” on Syria that he has publicly laid out.
Blinken indicated the United States was open eventually to easing sanctions on Syria but not yet.
Referring to HTS statements since their victory, Blinken said: “We appreciate some of the positive words we heard in recent days, but what matters is action — and sustained action.
“This can’t be a decision on the events of one day,” he said.
If a transition moves forward, “we in turn will look at various sanctions and other measures that we have taken and respond in kind.”
Blinken was closing a regional tour in which he has sought common ground after HTS overthrew Bashar Assad, whose family ruled brutally for half a century.
In Aqaba, Blinken took part in talks that brought together top Arab and European diplomats as well as Turkiye, the main supporter of militant groups in Syria.
In a joint statement, the participants called for a Syrian-led transition to “produce an inclusive, non-sectarian and representative government formed through a transparent process.”
The statement also stressed “respect for human rights,” the importance of combating “terrorism and extremism” and demanded “all parties” cease hostilities in Syria.
“Syria finally has the chance to end decades of isolation,” the group said.
UN Syria envoy Geir Pedersen earlier told Blinken: “We need to make sure that state institutions do not collapse, and that we get in humanitarian assistance as quickly as possible.”
The United States and other Western governments classify HTS as a terrorist group due to its roots in Al-Qaeda’s Syria branch.
The designation severely impedes activities of businesses and aid workers who risk falling foul of US law enforcement if they are seen as directly supporting a terrorist group.
Since seizing power last weekend, militant leader Abu Mohammed Al-Jolani has spoken in conciliatory terms about making peace with the broad spectrum of Syrian society.
Some analysts note that HTS has not focused on US or other Western targets.
Few expect a quick move by the United States to lift the terrorist designation, especially with a political transition set next month following Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election.
In Britain, a senior minister said that the government would decide quickly whether to remove the terrorist designation but Prime Minister Keir Starmer said it was still “far too early” to do so.
Blinken said that he found hope in the street celebrations in Syrian cities in recent days.
“No one has any illusions about how challenging this time will be, but there’s also something incredibly powerful — the Syrian people determined to break with the past and shape a better future,” he said.
He also hailed the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces for raising the new “independence” flag of the militants, after for years flying their own flag as they achieved limited self-rule.
Blinken said it was for Syrians to decide how to incorporate Kurds in the country but he hailed SDF fighters — who are bitterly opposed by Turkiye — for their role in fighting the Daesh group.
Blinken says US has made ‘direct contact’ with Syria’s victorious HTS
https://arab.news/ynfb7
Blinken says US has made ‘direct contact’ with Syria’s victorious HTS
- “We’ve been in contact with HTS and with other parties,” Blinken told reporters after talks on Syria in the Jordanian Red Sea resort of Aqaba
- He did not give details on how the contact took place but when asked if the United States reached out directly, he said: “Direct contact — yes“
UAE president receives call from Syria’s new leader
- Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan affirmed that the UAE supports the Syrian people’s aspirations for security and peace
LONDON: UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan received a call from Ahmed Al-Sharaa, the leader of the new Syrian administration, on Sunday.
During the call, both sides discussed ways to enhance relations between the two countries in areas of mutual interest.
Sheikh Mohamed emphasized the UAE’s unwavering support for Syria’s independence and sovereignty over its territory, the Emirates News Agency reported.
The UAE supports the Syrian people’s aspirations for security, peace, and a dignified life, he added.
Syria destroys millions of captagon pills, other drugs
- Officials find100 million pills of the amphetamine-like stimulant captagon
- Production and trafficking of the drug flourished under ousted President Bashar Assad
DAMASCUS: Syrian security forces destroyed seized drugs Sunday including around 100 million pills of the amphetamine-like stimulant captagon — whose production and trafficking flourished under ousted president Bashar Assad, an official said.
A 2022 AFP investigation found that Syria under Assad had become a narco state, with the $10-billion captagon industry dwarfing all other exports and funding both his regime and many of his enemies.
“We destroyed large quantities of narcotic pills,” said official Badr Youssef, including “about 100 million captagon pills and 10 to 15 tons of hashish” as well as raw materials used to produce captagon.
He spoke from the Damascus headquarters of the defunct Fourth Division where the drugs were seized. The Fourth Division, a notorious branch of the Syrian army, was controlled by Assad’s brother Maher.
The official SANA news agency said “the anti-narcotics department of the (interior) ministry is destroying narcotic substances seized at the headquarters of the Fourth Division.”
An AFP photographer saw security personnel in a Fourth Division warehouse load dozens of bags filled with pills and other drugs into trucks, before taking them to a field to be burned.
On December 8, Islamist-led rebels ousted Assad after a lightning offensive that lasted less than two weeks. The army and Assad’s security apparatus collapsed as the new authorities seized control of Damascus.
On Saturday, SANA reported that authorities had seized “a huge warehouse belonging to the former regime” in the coastal city of Latakia. It said the factory “specialized in packing captagon pills into children’s toys and furniture.”
On Sunday, an AFP photographer visited the warehouse near the port and saw security personnel dismantling children’s bicycles that contained the small white pills.
Captagon pills had also been hidden inside objects such as doors, shisha water pipes and car parts, he reported.
Abu Rayyan, a security official in Latakia, said that “about 50 to 60 million captagon pills” had been seized that “belonged to the Fourth Division.”
“This is the largest such warehouse in the area,” he said.
Abu Rayyan said the drugs had been packed for export from Latakia “to neighboring countries,” and that they would be destroyed.
Syrian defense minister rejects Kurdish proposal for its own military bloc
- Defense minister aims to bring anti-Assad factions into unified command
- Kurdish SDF has proposed retaining own bloc in armed forces
DAMASCUS: Syria’s new defense minister said on Sunday it would not be right for US-backed Kurdish fighters based in the country’s northeast to retain their own bloc within the broader integrated Syrian armed forces.
Speaking to Reuters at the Defense Ministry in Damascus, Murhaf Abu Qasra said the leadership of the Kurdish fighters, known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), was procrastinating in its handling of the complex issue.
The SDF, which has carved out a semi-autonomous zone through 14 years of civil war, has been in talks with the new administration in Damascus led by former rebels who toppled President Bashar Assad on Dec. 8.
SDF commander Mazloum Abdi has said one of their central demands is a decentralized administration, saying in an interview with Saudi Arabia’s Asharq News channel last week that the SDF was open to integrating with the Defense Ministry but as “a military bloc,” and without dissolving.
Abu Qasra rejected that proposal on Sunday.
“We say that they would enter the Defense Ministry within the hierarchy of the Defense Ministry, and be distributed in a military way — we have no issue there,” said Abu Qasra, who was appointed defense minister on Dec. 21.
“But for them to remain a military bloc within the Defense Ministry, such a bloc within a big institution is not right.”
One of the minister’s priorities since taking office has been integrating Syria’s myriad anti-Assad factions into a unified command structure.
But doing so with the SDF has proved challenging. The US considers the group a key ally against Daesh militants, but neighboring Turkiye regards it as a national security threat.
Abu Qasra said he had met the SDF’s leaders but accused them of “procrastinating” in talks over their integration, and said incorporating them in the Defense Ministry like other ex-rebel factions was “a right of the Syrian state.”
Abu Qasra was appointed to the transitional government about two weeks after Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, the Islamist group to which he belongs, led the offensive that ousted Assad.
He said he hoped to finish the integration process, including appointing some senior military figures, by March 1, when the transitional government’s time in power is set to end.
Asked how he responded to criticism that a transitional council should not make such appointments or carry out such sweeping changes of the military infrastructure, he said “security issues” had prompted the new state to prioritize the matter.
“We are in a race against time and every day makes a difference,” he said.
The new administration was also criticized over its decision to give some foreigners, including Egyptians and Jordanians, ranks in the new military.
Abu Qasra acknowledged the decision had created a firestorm but said he was not aware of any requests to extradite any of the foreign fighters.
Aid trucks arrive at Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing ahead of Gaza entry, two sources say
CAIRO: About 200 aid delivery trucks, including 20 carrying fuel, began arriving on Sunday at the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing ahead of entry into the Gaza Strip, two Egyptian sources told Reuters.
A ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas in Gaza took effect on Sunday morning after a nearly three-hour delay, pausing a 15-month-old war that has shaken up the Middle East.
The aid trucks were using the Kerem Shalom entry point pending completion of maintenance at the Rafah border crossing into southern Gaza from Egypt, the sources said.
Israeli hardline minister Ben-Gvir quits government over Gaza deal
- The Otzma Yehudit party is no longer part of the ruling coalition
JERUSALEM: Hardline Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and two other ministers from his nationalist-religious party have resigned from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet over the Gaza ceasefire deal, their party said on Sunday.
The Otzma Yehudit party is no longer part of the ruling coalition but has said it will not try to bring down Netanyahu’s government.
In a statement, it called the ceasefire deal a “capitulation to Hamas” and denounced what it called the “release of hundreds of murderers” and the “renouncing of the (Israeli military’s) achievements in the war” in Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu retains a slim majority in the Israeli parliament despite their resignation.