By Humeyra Pamuk WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Donald Trump’s administration on Monday revoked the foreign terrorist organization designation for Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, as Washington moves to remove U.S. sanctions on Syria to help the country rebuild following years of a civil war. In December, Islamist rebels led by HTS ousted Syria’s former president Bashar al-Assad in […]
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US revokes foreign terrorist designation for Syria’s HTS
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By Humeyra Pamuk
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Donald Trump’s administration on Monday revoked the foreign terrorist organization designation for Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, as Washington moves to remove U.S. sanctions on Syria to help the country rebuild following years of a civil war.
In December, Islamist rebels led by HTS ousted Syria’s former president Bashar al-Assad in a lightning offensive. Then-HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa became Syria’s president and said he wanted to build an inclusive and democratic Syria.
HTS was previously known as al-Nusra Front when it was al-Qaeda’s Syria branch. It broke off ties with al-Qaeda in 2016.
In May, Sharaa met with Trump in Riyadh where, in a major policy shift, the Republican president unexpectedly announced he would lift U.S. sanctions on Syria, prompting Washington to significantly ease its measures.
“This FTO revocation is an important step in fulfilling President Trump’s vision of a stable, unified, and peaceful Syria,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement, adding that the revocation will come into effect on Tuesday.
Last week, Trump signed an executive order terminating U.S. sanctions program on Syria, a move that aims to end the country’s isolation from the international financial system.
Syria’s foreign ministry told Reuters that the lifting of sanctions on HTS was a “positive step toward correcting a course that previously hindered constructive engagement.”
The written statement said Syria hoped the move would “contribute to the removal of remaining restrictions that continue to impact Syrian institutions and officials, and open the door to a rational, sovereign-based approach to international cooperation.”
The ministry also said that Sharaa was planning to attend the upcoming United Nations General Assembly in September. The U.N. Security Council still has sanctions on both HTS and Sharaa himself, which require a Council decision to remove.
(Reporting by Humeyra PamukAdditional reporting by Katharine Jackson in Washington and Maya Gebeily in Beirut; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Tomasz Janowski and Deepa Babington)