Deputy Spokesperson for the US State Department, Vedant Patel, said that the United States will not hesitate to take measures and steps to hold Damascus accountable for human rights violations in Syria, including the “Caesar Act.”
He indicated that America will not support its allies regarding normalization with Damascus, in his comment on the news of submitting a draft in the “Congress”, aimed at preventing the United States from recognizing Bashar al-Assad as president in Syria, and strengthening Washington’s ability to impose sanctions to prevent countries from normalizing relations with him.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and his Kuwaiti counterpart Salem Al-Sabah stressed the importance of promoting a political solution in Syria in line with UN Security Council Resolution 2254.
Blinken stressed that the United States will not normalize its relations with the Syrian regime before achieving actual progress towards a permanent political solution.
Law combating normalization with the Assad regime
Yesterday, Thursday, a group of lawmakers from both the Republican and Democratic parties presented a draft bill calling on the US administration not to recognize Bashar al-Assad as President of Syria and to strengthen Washington’s ability to impose sanctions, in a warning to countries that normalize their relations with the Syrian regime.
According to Reuters, the proposed legislation could prevent the US federal government from recognizing or normalizing relations with any government in Syria led by Bashar al-Assad, who is under US sanctions.
It also aims to expand the scope of the Caesar Act, under which Washington has imposed harsh sanctions on Syria since 2020.
According to what Reuters quoted a source in Congress, the legislation “is a response to the return of Assad to the Arab League, and a warning to Turkey and the Arab countries that if they deal with the Assad regime, they may face dire consequences.”
