(Damascus) Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said in an interview published Sunday that Syria had held meetings “from time to time” with Washington, as the country seeks to emerge from its isolation.
The United States was among the first to cut ties with Mr. Assad over his crackdown on pro-democracy protests in 2011, which sparked a civil war. Many Western and Arab countries have also severed relations with the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
In 2023, however, the latter initiated a rapprochement with several Arab countries, established by the return of Damascus to the Arab League.
The Syrian president notably sought to get closer to the rich monarchies of the Gulf, allies of the United States, to involve them in financing the reconstruction of the country.
“Currently, America illegally occupies part of our lands […]but we meet with them from time to time, although these meetings achieve nothing,” Mr. Assad said in an interview with an official from Georgia’s Russia-backed separatist region of Abkhazia, published by the official Syrian news agency Sana.
“There is always hope: even if we know there will be no results, we must try,” he added in response to a question about the possibility of reestablishing links with the Western countries.
Since the start of the war in 2011, the United States has imposed a series of sanctions on Syria, which was already a pariah state in the West under the rule of Hafez al-Assad, father of the current president.
A US law that came into force in 2020 aims to prevent normalization of trade with Damascus until accountability has been given for the atrocities committed by Syrian officials. This law is accompanied by sanctions against people close to Assad.
Washington is also at odds with Damascus over US support for semi-autonomous Kurdish authorities in northeast Syria, spearheading the fight against the Islamic State group, with the backing of a state-led international coalition. -United. Damascus accuses the Kurdish authorities of separatism and treason.
In 2022, US President Joe Biden accused Syria of detaining American journalist Austin Tice, kidnapped in 2012 in Damascus, calling on the Syrian government to help secure his release. Damascus had denied holding him.