The United States administration has been in “direct contact” with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the militant group that toppled Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.
“We’ve been in contact with HTS and with other parties,” Blinken told reporters in Jordan on Saturday.
Western capitals have been debating how to engage with the Syrian rebels who took power in Damascus last Sunday and who are led by HTS, which the U.S. and the U.K. have designated as a terrorist organization.
The first public confirmation of interaction with HTS came at the conclusion of Blinken’s diplomatic tour of the region sparked by the sudden downfall of Assad’s decades-long rule.
He signed off on a set of guiding principles for Syria’s transition with officials from eight Arab nations, Turkey, the European Union and the United Nations.
Under the agreement, the transition process must be Syrian-led and inclusive; the rights of all Syrians, including women, respected; humanitarian aid unrestricted; Syria banned from being used as a terrorist base; and all chemical weapons stockpiles destroyed.
“Now, no one has any illusions about how challenging this time will be, but there’s also something incredibly powerful at work: a Syrian people determined to break with the past and shape a better future,” Blinken said.
The U.S. official also emphasized that helping find Austin Tice — an American freelance journalist who is thought to have been taken captive close to Damascus in August 2012 while he was covering the country’s civil war — and bringing him home will be a top priority.
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