President Donald Trump on Monday formally dismantled US sanctions against Syria, hoping to reintegrate the war-battered country into the global economy as Israel eyes ties with its new leadership.
Trump lifted most sanctions against Syria in May, responding to appeals from Saudi Arabia and Turkey after former Islamist guerrilla Ahmed al-Sharaa ended a half-century of rule by the Assad family.
In an executive order, Trump terminated the “national emergency” in place since 2004 that imposed far-reaching sanctions on Syria, affecting most state-run institutions including the central bank.
“This is in an effort to promote and support the country’s path to stability and peace,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters.
“These actions reflect the president’s vision of fostering a new relationship between the United States and a Syria that is stable, unified and at peace with itself and its neighbors,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement.
Rubio said he would start the potentially lengthy process of examining whether to delist Syria as a state sponsor of terrorism, a designation dating from 1979 that has severely discouraged investment.
He also said he would look at removing the terrorist classification of Sharaa and his movement Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which was once linked to Al-Qaeda. The United States already removed a bounty on Sharaa’s head after he came to power.
Brad Smith, the Treasury Department official in charge of sanctions, said the move “will end the country’s isolation from the international financial system, setting the stage for global commerce and galvanising investments from its neighbors in the region as well as from the United States”.
The order, released by the White House, said that Syria has been “transformed” since the fall of Assad, including through “positive actions taken by the new Syrian government under President Ahmed al-Sharaa”.
The orders still maintain sanctions on elements of the former government, including Bashar al-Assad, who fled to Russia late last year.
Syrian Foreign Minister Assaad al-Shibani said the US move marked a “major turning point”.
“With the lifting of this major obstacle to economic recovery, the long-awaited doors are opening for reconstruction and development” as are the conditions “for the dignified return of displaced Syrians to their homeland”, he wrote on X.
Syria recently carried out its first electronic transfer through the international banking system since around the time it descended into a brutal civil war in 2011.
Israel sees opportunity
Israel kept pounding military sites in its historic adversary after the fall of Assad and initially voiced skepticism over the trajectory of its neighbor under Sharaa, who was formerly linked to Al-Qaeda.
But Israel said earlier Monday that it was interested in normalising ties with Syria as well as Lebanon in an expansion of the Abraham Accords in what would mark a major transformation of the Middle East.
Iran’s clerical state’s once strong influence in Syria and Lebanon has declined sharply under pressure from Israeli military strikes since the October 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas.
Trump administration officials argued that lifting the sanctions on Syria would better integrate the country into the region and incentivise overtures by Israel.
Israel’s intensive attacks on Iran in June opened a “window that has never existed”, said Tom Barrack, the US ambassador to Turkey who serves as Trump’s pointman on Syria.
“It’s an opportunity that we have never, ever seen, and this president’s put together a team that can actually get it done,” Barrack told reporters.
Despite the upbeat picture of the new Syrian leader, the country has seen a series of major attacks against minorities since the fall of Assad, a largely secular leader from the Alawite minority sect.
At least 25 people were killed and dozens more wounded in a suspected Islamist attack against a Greek Orthodox church in Damascus on June 22.
Until Trump’s surprise announcement of sanctions relief during a trip to Saudi Arabia, the United States had insisted on progress first in key areas including protection of minorities.
The United States still classifies Syria as a state sponsor of terrorism, a designation that could take longer to lift and which also severely discourages investment.
