Blinken confirms contact with Syrian group

AQABA, Jordan — American officials have been in direct contact with the terrorist-designated rebel group that led the overthrow of Syrian President Bashar Assad, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Saturday.

Blinken, speaking at a news conference in Jordan, was the first U.S. official to confirm contacts between the Biden administration and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which led a coalition of armed opposition groups that drove Assad from power and into asylum in Russia last weekend.

With counterparts from eight Arab nations and Turkey and officials from the European Union and United Nations, Blinken signed off on a set of principles meant to guide Syria’s transition to a peaceful, nonsectarian and inclusive country.

Blinken would not discuss details of the direct contacts with HTS but said it was important for the United States to convey messages to the group about its conduct and how it plans to govern in a transition period.

“Yes, we have been in contact with HTS and with other parties,” Blinken said in the port city of Aqaba. He added that “our message to the Syrian people is this: We want them to succeed and we’re prepared to help them do so.”

HTS, once an affiliate of al-Qaida, has been designed as a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department since 2018. That designation carries severe sanctions, including a ban on the provision of any “material support” to the group or its members.

The sanctions do not legally bar U.S. officials from communicating with designated groups.

In an interview Saturday on Syrian television, the group’s leader, Ahmad al-Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani, did not address any direct contact with the United States but said the new authorities in Damascus are in touch with Western embassies.

He also said that “we don’t intend to enter any conflict because there is general exhaustion in Syria.”

HTS has worked to establish security and start a political transition after seizing Damascus and has tried to reassure a public both stunned by Assad’s fall and concerned about extremist jihadis among the rebels. Insurgent leaders say the group has broken with its extremist past.

Blinken also stressed that “the success that we’ve had in ending the territorial caliphate” of the Islamic State group remains “a critical mission.” And citing the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, the Kurdish fighters who in recent years drove IS out of large areas of Syria, he called it “very important at this moment that they continue that role because this is a moment of instability” in which IS “will seek to regroup and take advantage of.”

A joint statement after the meeting of foreign ministers urged all parties to cease hostilities in Syria and expressed support for a locally led transitional political process. It called for preventing the re-emergence of extremist groups.

In other developments:

■ Turkey reopened its embassy in Damascus, becoming the first country to do so since the end of Assad’s rule.

■ Al-Sharaa said in the TV interview that “the pretexts that Israel uses have ended” for its airstrikes that have destroyed much of the Syrian army’s assets in recent days. He said “the Israelis have crossed the rules of engagement” but that the insurgent group is not about to enter a conflict with Israel.

■ The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah said the terrorist group has lost its military supply line through Syria but that the new authority there might reinstate the route.