On Friday, the Trump administration raised several major sanctions against Syria, a first step towards taking the promise of President Trump earlier this month to help the new head of the country to establish a stable government after the fall of the brutal dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad last year.
The Treasury Department has raised the regulations prohibiting citizens and American companies from making most financial transactions with Syrian citizens and entities, including the Syrian Central Bank, officials said. At the same time, the State Department announced that it suspended Syria for Syria for six months under Caesar Syrian Civilian Act 2019 six.
The Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, said in a statement that the lifting of sanctions “would advance the efforts to recover and reconstruct Syria” and “would facilitate the supply of electricity, energy, water and sanitation, and allow a more effective humanitarian response” in the country.
The Assad government repressed an uprising in 2011, triggering a civil war which caused the death of hundreds of thousands of people and forced a massive exodus of Syrians.
In December, the Assad regime was finally overthrown by a rebel alliance after more than 10 years of fighting, and Ahmed Al-Shara, a rebellious leader, became president. Mr. Al-Shara once directed a branch of al-Qaeda, but then broke out with the jihadist group, and in recent interviews, he expressed his support for democracy, presenting a more pragmatic nationalist approach to governance.
During his trip to Saudi Arabia this month, Trump agreed to meet Mr. Al-Shara, becoming the first American leader in a generation to shake hands with a Syrian head of state.
Trump said he had made the decision to raise the sanctions against Syria after talking to the president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who supported the anti-Assad insurrection, and the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed Bin Salman.
“There is a new government which, hopefully, will succeed in stabilizing the country and maintaining peace,” said Trump in Saudi Arabia on May 13. “This is what we want to see in Syria.”