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WASHINGTON — President Trump gave his final sign-off Monday to lifting longstanding US sanctions on Syria after pledging to do so last month during a trip to Saudi Arabia – in spite of the fact that the country’s new president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, is a former leader of al Qaeda.
Trump, 79, met with al-Sharaa, 42, May 14 and has described the sanctions relief as intended to give the Damascus government “a chance” by reconnecting it to international banking and trade after 14 years of civil war.
State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce announced the move on a call with reporters, saying: “The interagency team, including the Departments of State, Treasury and Commerce, is actively executing the president’s bold vision for a stable, secure and peaceful Syria.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a briefing Monday that former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is living in exile in Russia, would remain subject to sanctions.
US sanctions also will impact “[Assad’s] associates, human rights abusers, drug traffickers, persons linked to chemical weapons activities, ISIS and their affiliates and Iranian proxies,” Leavitt said.
Trump announced during a speech in Riyadh the day before meeting al-Sharaa that he would be lifting US sanctions on Syria’s government – receiving a standing ovation from regional leaders who had helped bankroll the revolt against the Iran-backed Assad.
The US president praised his “young, attractive” counterpart and even claimed al-Sharaa had verbally agreed to establish diplomatic relations with Israel — a purported commitment that remains unfulfilled.
“Tough guy. Strong past. Very strong past. Fighter,” Trump said at the time.
“He’s got a real shot at holding it together. I spoke with [Turkish] President [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan, who is very friendly with him … He feels he’s got a shot of doing a good job. It’s a torn-up country.”
Trump has repeatedly alleged that Erdogan used al-Sharaa’s militants to complete an “unfriendly takeover” of Syria.
Al-Sharaa, born in Riyadh to a Syrian businessman father and raised in Damascus, fought US troops as a member of Al Qaeda in Iraq beginning in 2003. He founded the terror group’s Nusra Front affiliate in Syria in 2012 before breaking with al Qaeda’s leadership in 2016.
He has sought to rebrand himself as a defender of Syria’s religious diversity, despite recent massacres of members of Assad’s Alawite religious minority along the country’s Mediterranean coast and sectarian violence against Druze minorities in the south.
English (US)