Bipartisan lawmakers meet with Syria's president in Damascus
The Syrian Foreign Ministry on Tuesday posted photos of the lawmakers, the delegation included Sens. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), and Reps. Jason Smith (R-Mo.) and Jimmy Panetta (D-Calif.)
The lawmakers met with al-Sharaa and other senior officials in the administration, including Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Assad Hassan Al-Shaibani and Minister of Interior Anas Khattab.
The Hill has reached out to the lawmakers' offices for comment.
Trump has moved to significantly ease sanctions on Syria in the wake of the ousting of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in December. But Congress is split over whether to permanently repeal the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act, a comprehensive sanctions regime against Syria that was meant to isolate and bankrupt Assad. Trump only has a six-month waiver to suspend those sanctions.
The divide is bipartisan. Some Republicans and Democrats are arguing for a cautious approach to lifting sanctions, to closely watch how al-Sharaa follows through on key commitments to counterterrorism, justice for victims of Assad and protection of minorities.
Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) put his support behind an initiative from Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) that would amend Caesar to give the president more flexibility on suspending sanctions yet retain the ability to implement them if needed. The debate in Congress came shortly after an American citizen was killed among a group of Syrian-Druze in an outbreak of sectarian violence in Suwayda, in southern Syria.
'We cannot expect perfection, we are not looking for Jeffersonian democracy in Syria, but we are also looking for a government to do all it can to prevent seven Druze, including one U.S. citizen, from being executed,' Sherman said last month, referring to the violence.
Still, there seems to be bipartisan consensus for engagement with al-Sharaa and his government. The delegation including Ernst and others follows trips by other lawmakers to Syria in the wake of the ousting of former dictator Bashar al-Assad, who fled the country in December amid a lightning takeover by al-Sharaa as head of the former-designated terrorist organization Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.
Another Republican lawmaker, Arizona Rep. Abraham Hamadeh, who is of Syrian-Druze heritage, traveled to Damascus earlier this month to advocate for the return of Americans killed in Syria, in particular for Kayla Mueller, who was killed in 2015 while she was a hostage of ISIS in Syria. Her family are his constituents. The Trump administration has also pushed for the Syrian government to help locate Austin Tice, an American journalist kidnapped by the Assad regime in 2012. The family believes he is alive.
Hamadeh traveled to Damascus after meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, and urged Syria's inclusion in the Abraham Accords, to normalize ties with Israel. Netanyahu has ordered airstrikes on Syria in what he says are counterterrorism actions and protections of Syria's Druze minority. Hamadeh lobbied al-Sharaa to provide for the safe delivery of medical and humanitarian aid to Suwayda.
In April, a pair of Republican lawmakers also traveled to Syria, Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.) and Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-Ind.).
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