US secretary of state Marco Rubio and Syrian foreign minister Asaad al-Shaibani are set to meet on Thursday in Turkey to discuss Washington’s conditions for normalisation with Damascus.
This development follows Wednesday’s meeting in Riyadh between Syrian interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa and Donald Trump, who on Tuesday announced he would lifting US sanctions on Syria.
These developments amount to a dramatic breakthrough for Sharaa, who in 2017 founded Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). It was branded a terrorist organisation by the US and a $10 million bounty was put on Sharaa’s head.
After HTS’s ousted Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in December, senior US diplomats visited Damascus to discuss Syria’s future and remove the bounty.
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Lifting sanctions was the first step in the process of resuming ties. In 1979, the US listed Syria as a state sponsor of terrorism and imposed on it an arms embargo and financial restrictions. Sanctions were tightened in 2004.
After the Syrian government cracked down on protesters in 2011, sanctions were imposed on individuals associated with the Assad government, foreign assets were frozen, US investments in Syria were banned and restrictions were levelled on oil imports to the US.
Sanctions were expanded under the 2019 Congressional Caesar Act, which penalised individuals and firms engaging in business with the Syrian government or its affiliates.
The US president will have to secure congressional revocation of this act before Syria can attract funds for reconstruction. This has long been a demand of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, which seek to invest in Syria.
Meeting US conditions for normalisation is the second step. Since the removal of the 54-year-old Assad dynasty, the US has demanded that HTS, a Sunni Muslim group, ensures the rights and security of Syria’s Christian, Druze, Alawite, Shia and Kurdish minorities, and grants them representation in governance.
The US has also called for the destruction of weapons of mass destruction and disarmament, as well as the demobilisation and exit from Syria of foreign fighters who partnered HTS in its campaign to seize power.
Washington has also sought Syria’s support for its 2,000 troops based in northeastern Syria to battle remnants of the Islamic State terror group, and for the Syrian government to assume responsibility for 15,000 Islamic State prisoners held by US-allied Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces, which have declared autonomy in this region.
Once Syria assumes these tasks, Trump could pull out US troops. Washington has urged Damascus to break with Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, designate Iran‘s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organisation, and normalise ties with Israel.
While the latter is unlikely at present, Sharaa has conducted indirect talks with Israel over its occupation of the United Nations buffer zone between Syria and Israel and over scores of Israeli strikes on Syrian military facilities.
