A bipartisan pair of members of Congress visited Syria on Monday to press for a permanent repeal of U.S. sanctions that they said were holding back the country’s recovery from a brutal civil war.
The lawmakers, Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, and Representative Joe Wilson, Republican of South Carolina, made up the first official U.S. delegation to enter the country in years.
In meetings on Monday with Syria’s transitional president, Ahmed al-Shara, and other top officials, they maintained that removing the sanctions the United States had imposed when Bashar al-Assad was in power was key to attracting investment from regional partners, providing long-term certainty for the Syrian economy and sending an unmistakable signal of American support.
“A Syria that can stand on its own after ridding itself of the Assad regime will be a cornerstone for regional stability in the Middle East,” Ms. Shaheen said in a statement after leaving the country. “America is ready to be a partner to a new Syria that moves in the right direction.”
The Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act, enacted in 2019, imposed sweeping penalties on Syria’s construction, energy and financial sectors in response to Mr. al-Assad’s atrocities during the civil war. The law, which was named for the Syrian defector who exposed evidence of torture in government prisons, aimed to choke off Mr. al-Assad’s ability to rebuild. But with him gone and a transitional government in place, both Ms. Shaheen and Mr. Wilson argued that the sanctions measure was counterproductive, deterring outside investment and stifling reconstruction.
“I, over the years, have been working with the Syrian American community, and they’ve always had a dream that one day Damascus would be free,” Mr. Wilson told reporters after his time in the country. “And I believe it has come.”
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The post Lawmakers Visit Syria to Push for Repealing Sanctions Law appeared first on New York Times.
