By Humeyra Pamuk and Amina Ismail
WASHINGTON/DAMASCUS (Reuters) -High U.S. diplomats have been anticipated to carry Washington’s first in-person official conferences with Syria’s new de facto rulers led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in Damascus on Friday, hoping to gauge what plans the previous al Qaeda affiliate has for the nation.
The US, different Western powers and lots of Syrians have been glad to see militias led by HTS topple President Bashar al-Assad, however it’s not clear whether or not the group will impose strict Islamic rule or present flexibility and transfer in direction of democracy.
The U.S. officers from the Biden administration will talk about with HTS representatives a set of ideas similar to inclusivity and respect for the rights of minorities that Washington desires included in Syria’s political transition, a State Division spokesperson mentioned.
The State Division’s prime Center East diplomat Barbara Leaf, Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs Roger Carstens and Senior Advisor Daniel Rubinstein, who’s tasked with main the Division’s Syria engagement, are the primary U.S. diplomats to journey to Damascus since Assad’s rule collapsed.
Western governments are progressively opening channels to HTS and its chief Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former commander of an al Qaeda franchise in Syria, and beginning to debate whether or not to take away the group’s terrorist designation. The U.S. delegation’s journey follows contacts with France and Britain in latest days.
The delegation can even search details about U.S. journalist Austin Tice, who was taken captive throughout a reporting journey to Syria in August 2012, and different Americans who went lacking beneath Assad.
“They are going to be participating instantly with the Syrian folks, together with members of civil society, activists, members of various communities, and different Syrian voices about their imaginative and prescient for the way forward for their nation and the way the US will help help them,” the State Division spokesperson mentioned.
“Additionally they plan to fulfill with representatives of HTS to debate transition ideas endorsed by the US and regional companions in Aqaba, Jordan.”
The U.S. minimize diplomatic ties with Syria and shut its embassy within the capital Damascus in 2012.
SYRIANS GATHER
A number of hundred Syrians gathered in Damascus’ central Ummayad Sq. on Thursday to name for a democratic, secular state that ensures equal rights for girls. It was the primary such demonstration since Assad’s ouster.
There may be widespread apprehension amongst Syrians that the brand new administration will gravitate in direction of hardline spiritual rule, marginalising minority communities and excluding ladies from public life.
Obaida Arnout, a spokesperson for the Syrian transitional authorities, mentioned this week that ladies’s “organic and physiological nature” rendered them unfit for sure governmental jobs.
The U.N. human rights workplace will ship a small crew of human rights officers to Syria subsequent week for the primary time in years following the overthrow of Assad, U.N. spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan advised a press briefing in Geneva.
As a part of the takeover, rebels have flung open prisons and authorities workplaces, elevating recent hopes for accountability for crimes dedicated throughout Syria’s civil battle.
Syrian rebels seized management of Damascus on Dec. 8, forcing Assad to flee after greater than 13 years of civil battle and ending his household’s decades-long rule.
The insurgent sweep ended a battle that killed lots of of 1000’s, induced one of many largest refugee crises of contemporary instances and left cities bombed to rubble, countryside depopulated and the financial system hollowed out by international sanctions.
The lightning offensive raised questions over whether or not the rebels will have the ability to guarantee an orderly transition.
Forces beneath the command of al-Sharaa – higher often known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani – changed the Assad household rule with a three-month caretaker authorities that had been ruling a insurgent enclave in Syria’s northwestern province of Idlib.
Washington designated al-Sharaa a terrorist in 2013, saying al Qaeda in Iraq had tasked him with overthrowing Assad’s rule and establishing Islamic sharia regulation in Syria. It mentioned the Nusra Entrance, the predecessor of HTS, carried out suicide assaults that killed civilians and espoused a violent sectarian imaginative and prescient.
Golani mentioned the terrorist designation was unfair and that he opposed the killing of harmless folks.
Washington stays involved that ISIS may seize the second to resurrect and in addition desires to keep away from any clashes within the nation’s northeast between Turkey-backed insurgent factions and U.S.-allied Kurdish militia.
