New US envoy to Syria in Damascus: state media

DAMASCUS: The United States’ new envoy for Syria, Thomas Barrack, was in Damascus on Thursday, state media reported, marking the latest in the thawing of relations between the two countries after the fall of Bashar al-Assad.

The United States has in recent months started rebuilding ties with Syria under the new administration, ending more than a decade of diplomatic freeze.

Barrack, who is also ambassador to Turkiye, inaugurated the US ambassador’s residence in the Syrian capital with Syrian Foreign Minister Assaad al-Shaibani, SANA reported.

AFP photographers saw the US flag raised at the ambassador’s residence, just a few hundred metres (yards) from the US embassy in the Abu Rummaneh neighbourhood, under tight security.

“Tom understands there is great potential in working with Syria to stop Radicalism, improve Relations, and secure Peace in the Middle East,” US President Donald Trump said, according to a post on the State Department’s X.

The US embassy in Syria was closed after Assad’s repression of a peaceful uprising that began in 2011, which degenerated into civil war.

Barrack met with interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa in Istanbul on 24 May, after the United States lifted sanctions on Syria.

The meeting followed a meeting in Riyadh between Trump and Sharaa.

The last US ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, was declared persona non grata in 2011 after defying the Syrian government by visiting Hama – about 210 kilometres (130 miles) north of Damascus – while it was under army siege and the site of a major anti-regime protests.

In late December, a US delegation led by Barbara Leaf, the State Department’s Middle East representative, held an initial meeting with the new leadership in Damascus.