The U.S. on Monday eased some restrictions on Syria’s transitional government to allow the entry of humanitarian aid after Islamist insurgents ousted Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad last month.
The U.S. Treasury Department issued a general license lasting six months that authorizes certain transactions with the Syrian government, including some energy sales and incidental transactions.
The move does not lift sanctions on the nation that has been battered by more than a decade of war but indicates a limited show of U.S. support for the new transitional government.
The general license underscores America’s commitment to ensuring its sanctions “do not impede activities to meet basic human needs, including the provision of public services or humanitarian assistance,” a Treasury Department statement said.
Treasury Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo said his agency “will continue to support humanitarian assistance and responsible governance in Syria.”
Since Assad’s ouster, representatives from the nation’s new de facto authorities have said the new Syria will be inclusive and open to the world.
The U.S. has gradually lifted some penalties since Assad departed Syria for protection in Russia. The Biden administration in December decided to drop a $10 million bounty it had offered for the capture of a Syrian rebel leader whose forces led the ouster of Assad last month.
The announcement followed a meeting in Damascus between the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS; Ahmad al-Sharaa, who was once aligned with al-Qaida; and the top U.S. diplomat for the Middle East, Barbara Leaf, who led the first U.S. diplomatic delegation into Syria since Assad’s ouster. The U.S. and U.N. have long designated HTS as a terrorist organization.
HTS led a lightning insurgency that ousted Assad on Dec. 8 and ended his family’s decades-long rule. From 2011 until Assad’s downfall, Syria’s uprising and civil war killed an estimated 500,000 people.
Much of the world ended diplomatic relations with Assad because of his crackdown on protesters and sanctioned him and his Russian and Iranian associates.
Most of the Western-led sanctions targeted Assad and his associates for the brutal crackdown on protesters and their manufacturing of the amphetamine-like stimulant Captagon, which reportedly generated billions of dollars as packages of the little white pills were smuggled across Syria’s porous borders.
With Assad out of the picture, Syria’s new authorities hope the international community will pour money into the country to rebuild its battered infrastructure and make its economy viable again.
Syria’s infrastructure has been battered, with power cuts rampant in the country and some 90% of its population living in poverty. About half the population won’t know where its next meal will come from as inflation surges.
The pressure to lift sanctions has mounted in recent years as aid agencies continue to cut programs due to donor fatigue and a massive 2023 earthquake that rocked Syria and Turkey. The tremor killed over 59,000 people and destroyed critical infrastructure that couldn’t be fixed due to sanctions and overcompliance, despite the U.S. announcing some humanitarian exemptions.
Qutaiba Idlbi, a research fellow at the Atlantic Council who leads work on Syria, said ahead of the general license issuance:
“There is a general agreement,” among regional and international governments, “that we need to avoid driving Syria back into chaos.”
“The only path forward is to engage positively,” he said.
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