AQABA, Jordan — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrapped up maybe his final go to to the Middle East as America’s prime diplomat, aiming to maintain Syria from spiraling uncontrolled after the sudden ouster of President Bashar Assad.
Blinken was one among a number of senior US officers touring throughout the area within the closing weeks of the Biden administration, amid deep uncertainty in Washington and overseas over how Donald Trump will strategy the Middle East when he takes workplace on January 20, 2025 .
Blinken has held conferences with Jordan, Turkey and Iraq with the purpose of attempting to form Syria’s post-Assad future by constructing consensus amongst regional companions and allies whose pursuits typically diverge.
“We know that what occurs inside Syria can have highly effective penalties far past its borders, from mass displacement to terrorism,” he instructed reporters Saturday in Aqaba, Jordan. “And we all know that we can not underestimate the challenges of this second.”
The primary goal of his 11 earlier journeys to the area for the reason that begin of the conflict between Israel and Hamas in October 2023 was to safe a ceasefire in Gaza resulting in the discharge of the remaining hostages.
Now, instantly, that was now not his precedence and was dealt with by President Joe Biden’s nationwide safety adviser, Jake Sullivan, who traveled to Israel, Egypt and Qatar final week. Blinken stated he used his conferences to push ahead a cease-fire settlement.
Biden’s workforce is working out of time to cement a legacy within the Middle East after drawing widespread criticism for turning a blind eye to Israel’s navy conduct and therapy of civilians in Gaza. They managed to assist foster a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon which, whereas tenuous, is holding.
Here are some insights from Blinken’s journey:
Charting a brand new course for Syria
While hopes stay of concluding a ceasefire in Gaza earlier than Biden leaves the White House, serving to form a brand new Syria might show to be a low-hanging fruit.
Blinken left Washington simply three days after Assad, his longtime ally, fled to Russia. Blinken has stated his objective is to get nations within the Middle East and elsewhere to decide to supporting the U.S. imaginative and prescient of how Syria ought to be managed after a long time of rule by the Assad household.
To this finish, he stated he had secured the assist of the 12 overseas ministers of the Arab League, Turkey and senior officers from the European Union and the United Nations who held an emergency assembly on Syria within the Jordanian port metropolis of Aqaba on Saturday .
They agreed that the brand new Syrian authorities ought to respect the rights of minorities and ladies, stop terrorist teams from gaining a foothold, be sure that humanitarian support reaches individuals in want, and shield and destroy any remaining Assad-era chemical weapons.
Blinken promised that the United States would acknowledge and assist a brand new authorities that revered these rules.
Seek stability to discourage the Islamic State group
Syria is torn by partisan and sectarian strife that primarily led to the rise of the Islamic State combating group.
Turkey, Syria’s northern neighbor, is deeply suspicious of the Syrian and Iraqi Kurds. Turkey considers them terrorists, although a few of these Kurds have turned out to be key companions of the United States within the combat to destroy ISIS.
The United States helped dealer a deal between the Turks and a kind of Kurdish teams, the Syrian Defense Forces, after Assad’s departure, though it’s unclear how lengthy it should final.
“We have the urgency of now,” Blinken stated Saturday. “The urgency now’s to make sure that the success now we have achieved in ending ISIS’s territorial caliphate … stays a core mission,” he stated, utilizing a special acronym for the group.
The SDF operates detention services housing round 10,000 fighters, and Blinken stated his function was crucial as a result of “this can be a second of instability by which ISIS will attempt to regroup and take benefit.”
Soon after the autumn of Assad, the United States struck round 75 ISIS targets within the Syrian desert in an try to forestall the group from gaining a foothold. The United States additionally has about 900 troops in Syria to combat the group.
Faced with Trump’s return to energy
There are issues within the area about how the longer term Trump administration will deal with the Middle East, in addition to deepening ties with Israel.
Trump known as for the speedy launch of hostages in Gaza, threatening on social media that in any other case there could be “HELL to pay” and urged the United States to not become involved in Syria.
However, present US officers imagine the Republican is unlikely to desert American navy positions in Syria, as he needed to do throughout his first time period. Their perception stems from the truth that Trump typically takes credit score for defeating ISIS by ending the liberation of their territory that started in the course of the Obama administration.
According to those officers, the specter of a attainable return of ISIS could be too nice for Trump to danger. They say Iraq, which signed a take care of the United States in September underneath which the U.S.-led anti-IS coalition will withdraw subsequent 12 months, is already hinting that circumstances might pressure a change in that calendar.
On the Gaza ceasefire settlement and hostage launch, Sullivan expressed cautious optimism that circumstances are ripe to cease the long-running battle earlier than the tip of the Biden administration.
“I would not be right here proper now if I did not suppose this factor would wait till after January 20,” he stated this week.
Sullivan additionally stated there was good cooperation with the brand new Trump administration, with broad settlement between them.
Sullivan returned to Washington on Saturday after holding talks with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi. But it left senior White House adviser Brett McGurk to proceed talks within the area to achieve a deal to free about 100 hostages, a few third who Israeli officers imagine are useless, who stay captive in Gaza.
In search of lacking Americans
The Biden administration has made it a precedence to search out Austin Tice, an American journalist believed to have been detained in Syria for greater than a decade. After Assad’s ouster, the United States redoubled its efforts to search out Tice and convey him residence.
Blinken stated Saturday that the United States has been in direct contact with the rebels who ousted Assad, together with about “the significance of serving to discover Austin Tice and bringing him residence.”
Washington’s prime hostage negotiator, Roger Carstens, traveled to Lebanon this week in hopes of acquiring info on Tice.
Meanwhile, U.S. officers stated Friday that one other American, Travis Timmerman, was flown by the U.S. navy out of Syria, the place he disappeared seven months in the past in Assad’s jail system. Timmerman was amongst hundreds of individuals launched this week.
Officials say Timmerman, 29, was flown to Jordan on a U.S. navy helicopter on Friday, and it is unclear the place he would possibly go subsequent. He was arrested after getting into Syria from Lebanon throughout a Christian pilgrimage in June.
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