The US has made “direct contact” with the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) rebels who now control Syria after toppling the Bashar al-Assad regime, the BBC reports Secretary of State Antony Blinken as saying.
Syrian rebels ended Assad’s 24-year-long rule, with opposition forces taking the capital and forcing the president to flee to Russia on 8th December. HTS rebel leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, who previously used the name Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, has appointed Mohammed al-Bashir as Syria’s interim prime minister.
The overthrow followed a 13-year civil war, which started after Assad crushed pro-democracy protests. The fighting killed more than half a million people, displaced millions more, and embroiled international powers and their proxies, accordibg to the report by the BBC.
Blinken’s comment is the first acknowledgement of direct American contact with HTS, which the US currently still designates as a terrorist organisation.
He was speaking in Jordan after talks with representatives from several Arab countries, Turkey and Europe to discuss the future of Syria, says the report.
Officials agreed to support a peaceful transition process in the country, with Jordan’s foreign minister saying that regional powers did not want to see it “descend into chaos.”
A joint communique called for an inclusive Syrian government that respects the rights of minorities and does not offer a base for “terrorist groups”.
Meanwhile, Israel has launched dozens more air strikes against Syria, according to a war monitor, despite regional condemnation.
Israel has previously said it was taking action to “destroy strategic capabilities” that threaten it.
HTS has indicated that it is seeking an inclusive government. But the group’s violent jihadist past has left some doubting whether it will live up to such promises.
HTS was set up under a different name, Jabhat al-Nusra, in 2011 as a direct al-Qaeda affiliate. It was considered to be one of the most effective and deadly groups opposing President Assad.
It was proscribed as a terrorist group by the UN, the US, Turkey and other countries – and currently remains so.
But al-Sharaa has publicly broken ranks with al-Qaeda and HTS’s recent messaging has been one of inclusiveness and a rejection of violence or revenge.
The emerging political entities in Syria will need cohesion not just inside the country but outside, too, if there is to be any real hope for the Syrian people to build on the heady taste of freedom that they have experienced in the past week.
