The president of the United States, Donald Trump, took advantage of one of his usual executive decisions signing ceremonies to end, by way of a decree, with the sanctions that Washington had imposed on Syria, as he had promised
The announcement had made it a couple of hours before the White House spokeswoman, Karoline Leavitt, which told reporters that the measure aims to “promote and support the country’s path towards stability and peace,” after 13 years of civil war. He also clarified that the sanctions that weigh against former president Bachar el Asad are maintained,
The United States has already given Syria broad exemptions to the sanctions that Washington had maintained for half a century. During his visit to the Middle East, also in May, Trump was seen with the interim leader, Ahmed al Shara, in Saudi Arabia and promised him the lifting of financial punishment.
Keep peace
“[En Siria] There is a new government that, hopefully, will stabilize the country and maintain peace. I will order the cessation of the sanctions against Syria to give them a chance of greatness, ”Trump said in Riyadh. That day the Saudi heir prince and the strong man of the country, Mohamed Bin Salmán, who celebrated the announcement was present.
The United States decision adds to that of the European Union, which also raised all its sanctions to Damascus in May.
from the United States until last December, when the Asad fell: for its head Washington offered a reward of 10 million dollars. The Asad is exiled in Moscow. Both he, who clung to power for 24 years, and his father, Hafez El Asad, ruled Syria for half a century with an iron fist.
“The United States undertakes to support a stable, unified and peaceful Syria inside and with its neighbors,” you can read in the text of the Decree “a United Syria that does not offer refuge to terrorist organizations and guarantee the safety of its religious and ethnic minorities will contribute to regional security and prosperity.”
Washington raises those sanctions without conditions, in the confidence that by breaking the isolation of Syria in the global financial markets anime to Shara and theirs to fulfill with commitments related to the fight against terrorism, the integration of the Syrian Kurdish forces, respect for minorities and the reestablishment of relations with Israel.
Since 1979 sanctioning Syria, when he appointed the country as a sponsoring state of terrorism. In 2004, he extended these measures due to the military presence of Damascus in Lebanon and for his support for United States enemy militias in the region. In 2011, Washington imposed broad economic punishments to prominent Syrian officials, as well as oil exports and the financial sector in response to the brutal repression of the president undertaken by Bachar the Asad against the protesters during the Arab spring, which led to a civil war that has lasted 13 years.
Al Shara has a past as a leader of Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS), an organization that until 2016 was affiliated with Al Qaeda with the name against Nusra. The now Syrian president was captured in 2006 by the US army in Iraq and spent five years, without any judgment, imprisoned in several detention and torture centers, including, and the ABU Ghraib prison, famous for torture to the inmates during the invasion of Iraq.
