G.O.P. Lawmakers Visit Syria to Assess Situation Under New Government
Two Republican congressmen arrived in Damascus on Friday, the first visit by American lawmakers to Syria in many years — and a signal that the party is starting to pay attention to the war-ravaged country after changes in leadership.
The congressmen, Cory Mills of Florida and Marlin Stutzman of Indiana, were accompanied by members of the Syrian community in America. The visit is a fact-finding mission, organizers said, and the group was expected to meet with government ministers and Syria's new president, Ahmed al-Shara.
The group is also expected to visit with religious leaders, including representatives of Syria's Christian minority, and to tour historical sites in the old city of Damascus, the capital, as well some of the suburbs that were destroyed in Syria's nearly 14-year civil war.
The group is also planning to visit the notorious Sednaya prison where thousands of Syrians were incarcerated, tortured and executed under the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad, who was ousted in December by a rebel coalition led by Mr. al-Shara.
The congressional trip was organized by the Indiana-based nonprofit Syrian American Alliance for Peace and Prosperity, a group keen to promote relations between the United States and the new Syrian leadership, said Dr. Tarek Kteleh, a rheumatologist who was is a member of the alliance and was traveling with the congressmen.
The nonprofit also wants American lawmakers to see for themselves how sanctions imposed on the Assad government and still in place, are damaging the economy, Dr. Kteleh said.
He said that he also hoped the visit would serve as an opening for the United States and Syria to forge a new relationship, and for Syria to turn away from Russia and Iran, its allies of the last 70 years.
'It is a fact-finding mission to see the situation on the ground, to visit the minorities,' Dr. Kteleh said. 'And to see how bad the economic situation is, but also to see how people are living and how there is peace in the country.'
The congressional visit comes several weeks after deadly clashes between Assad loyalists and the new government's security forces in towns along Syria's coastal area, which is the heartland of the country's Alawite religious minority. The Assad family are Alawites.
The fighting led to an outburst of sectarian violence, with hundreds of civilians killed by forces linked to the government, according to two war-monitoring groups.
The clashes have raised concerns for Syria's religious and ethnic minorities.
The new government is gradually establishing control around the country, disarming some militias and negotiating security agreements with others.
At the same time, the United States has begun reducing the number of troops in northeastern Syria, a reflection of the shifting security environment in the country.
While the Islamic State terror group remains a potent danger in Syria, the end of Mr. al-Assad's regime has reduced, at least for now, an array of other threats, including the Iran-backed militias and Russian troops that supported the former Syrian government.
Officials of the former Biden administration began initial contacts with Mr. al-Shara weeks after the overthrow of the Assad regime, with the State Department's top diplomat for the Middle East at the time, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara A. Leaf visiting Damascus on Dec. 20. She was the first American diplomat to visit Damascus since 2012.
Ms. Leaf said one of the priorities of her visit was to ramp up efforts to discover the fate of two Americans, Austin Tice and Majd Kamalmaz, who had been detained or gone missing in Syria during the civil war.
The U.S. Embassy in Damascus suspended its operations in 2012 when antigovernment protests were met with repression and the country descended into civil war.
The rebels who overthrew Mr. al-Assad in December nominated Mr. Al-Shara as president in January.
While he once led a group allied with Al Qaeda during the civil war, he has since broken ties with the extremist group. He is supposed to oversee a transitional government for five years that will draft a new constitution and prepare elections.
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