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Washington’s Conditions for Normalizing Ties with Damascus Vs. Criteria for Lifting Sanctions on Syria

A Syrian boy looks at an American military patrol east of the Euphrates region in Syria, (AFP)
A Syrian boy looks at an American military patrol east of the Euphrates region in Syria, (AFP)
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Washington’s Conditions for Normalizing Ties with Damascus Vs. Criteria for Lifting Sanctions on Syria

A Syrian boy looks at an American military patrol east of the Euphrates region in Syria, (AFP)
A Syrian boy looks at an American military patrol east of the Euphrates region in Syria, (AFP)

Washington has set seven conditions for lifting sanctions imposed under the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act of 2019. But to normalize ties with Damascus, the US is demanding authorities in the Levantine country to first meet six conditions, four of which have been set before civil war breaking out in 2011.

With nearly three months having passed since the Biden administration took over in Washington, it is becoming more and more evident that Syria is not an immediate priority for the new US leadership.

While the previous two US administrations appointed a special envoy to Syria, US President Joe Biden has not yet done so, although he has assigned special envoys to Lebanon and Iran.

Brett McGurk, the former US envoy for the International Coalition against ISIS, is now the White House coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa and is responsible for maintaining light supervision of US policy on Syria.

Nevertheless, the US continues to impose sanctions to pressure the Syrian regime headed by President Bashar al-Assad to comply with implementing UN Security Council Resolution 2254, which calls for a ceasefire and a political settlement in Syria.

But the Syrian regime can get rid of the bans if it gets the incumbent US president to agree it had met Caesar Act’s seven conditions for suspending sanctions.

The seven criteria include the following:

i. The Syrian and Russian governments cease using Syrian airspace to target civilian populations

ii. Areas of Syria not under government control are no longer cut off from international aid and have regular access to humanitarian assistance, freedom of travel and medical care

iii. The Syrian government release all political prisoners and allow access to detention facilities

iv. The Syrian government and its allies cease the deliberate targeting of medical facilities, schools, residential areas and other civilian targets

v. The Syrian government take steps to fulfill its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, and make “tangible progress” toward becoming a signatory to the Convention Prohibiting Biological and Toxin Weapons

vi. The Syrian government permit the safe, voluntary, and dignified return of Syrians displaced by the conflict

vii. The Syrian government takes “verifiable steps” to establish meaningful accountability for perpetrators of war crimes in Syria and justice for victims of war crimes committed by the Assad government.

But for the Syrian regime to get Washington to normalize ties with Damascus it must fulfill different conditions that have been put in place by the former Trump administration.

According to the peace plan drafted by the ex-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the Assad government would have to stop supporting terrorism, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, and the Lebanon-based Hezbollah militia.

It would also need to cease threatening neighboring countries, give up weapons of mass destruction, back the voluntary return of Syrian refugees and deliver war criminals to justice.

Some are arguing that US sanctions could be adversely affecting Syrians who are already suffering the scourge of an ongoing civil war and the fallout of a crippling economic crisis. But since coming to power, the Biden administration has launched a general revision of US sanctions everywhere based on ensuring they do not restrict the flow of humanitarian aid and efforts to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

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Despite Truce, Lebanese from Devastated Naqoura Cannot Go Home 

Cars drive past damaged buildings, as residents return to Naqoura, near the border with Israel, southern Lebanon, January 23, 2025. (Reuters)
Cars drive past damaged buildings, as residents return to Naqoura, near the border with Israel, southern Lebanon, January 23, 2025. (Reuters)
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Despite Truce, Lebanese from Devastated Naqoura Cannot Go Home 

Cars drive past damaged buildings, as residents return to Naqoura, near the border with Israel, southern Lebanon, January 23, 2025. (Reuters)
Cars drive past damaged buildings, as residents return to Naqoura, near the border with Israel, southern Lebanon, January 23, 2025. (Reuters)

All signs of life have disappeared from the bombed-out houses and empty streets of the Lebanese border town of Naqoura, but despite a fragile Hezbollah-Israel ceasefire that has held since November, no one can return.

The Israeli military is still deployed in parts of Lebanon's south, days ahead of a January 26 deadline to fully implement the terms of the truce.

The deal gave the parties 60 days to withdraw -- Israel back across the border, and Hezbollah farther north -- as the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers redeployed to the south.

The Lebanese military has asked residents of Naqoura not to go back home for their own safety after Israel's army issued similar orders, but in spite of the danger, Mayor Abbas Awada returned to inspect the destruction.

"Naqoura has become a disaster zone of a town... the bare necessities of life are absent here," he said in front of the damaged town hall, adding he was worried a lack of funds after years of economic crisis would hamper reconstruction.

"We need at least three years to rebuild," he continued, as a small bulldozer worked to remove rubble near the municipal offices.

Lebanese soldiers deployed in coastal Naqoura after Israeli troops pulled out of the country's southwest on January 6, though they remain in the southeast.

The Israelis' withdrawal from Naqoura left behind a sea of wreckage.

Opposite the town hall, an old tree has been uprooted. Empty, damaged houses line streets filled with rubble.

Most of the widespread destruction occurred after the truce took hold, Awada said.

"The Israeli army entered the town after the ceasefire" and "destroyed the houses", he said.

"Before the ceasefire, 35 percent of the town was destroyed, but after the truce, 90 percent of it" was demolished, he added, mostly with controlled explosions and bulldozers.

A resident previously displaced because of the hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, stands in his damaged home as he returns to Naqoura, near the border with Israel, southern Lebanon, January 23, 2025. (Reuters)

- Smell of death -

Under the November 27 ceasefire deal, which ended more than a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, the Lebanese army has 60 days to deploy alongside UNIFIL peacekeepers in south Lebanon as Israel withdraws.

At the same time, Hezbollah is required to pull its forces north of the Litani River, around 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the border, and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure it has in the south.

Both sides have accused each other of violations since the truce began.

Around the nearby UNIFIL headquarters, houses are still intact, but almost everywhere else in Naqoura lies destruction.

Facades are shorn from bombed-out houses, while others are reduced to crumpled heaps, abandoned by residents who had fled for their lives, leaving behind furniture, clothes and books.

AFP saw a completely destroyed school, banana plantations that had withered away and unharvested oranges on trees, their blossoming flowers barely covering the smell of rotting bodies.

On Tuesday, the civil defense agency said it had recovered two bodies from the rubble in Naqoura.

Lebanese soldiers who patrolled the town found an unexploded rocket between two buildings, AFP saw.

In October 2023, Hezbollah began firing across the border into Israel in support of its ally Hamas, a day after the Palestinian group launched its attack on southern Israel that triggered the Gaza war.

An Israeli army spokesperson told AFP that its forces were committed to the ceasefire agreement in Lebanon.

They said the army was working "to remove threats to the State of Israel and its citizens, in full accordance with international law".

UN vehicles drive past debris of damaged buildings in Naqoura, near the border with Israel, southern Lebanon, January 23, 2025. (Reuters)

- 'We want the wars to end' -

On the coastal road to Naqoura UNIFIL and the Lebanese army have set up checkpoints.

Hezbollah's yellow flags fluttered in the wind, but no fighters could be seen.

Twenty kilometers to the north, in Tyre, Fatima Yazbeck waits impatiently in a reception center for the displaced for her chance to return home.

She fled Naqoura 15 months ago, and since then, "I haven't been back", she said, recounting her sadness at learning her house had been destroyed.

Ali Mehdi, a volunteer at the reception center, said his home was destroyed as well.

"My house was only damaged at first," he said. "But after the truce, the Israelis entered Naqoura and destroyed the houses, the orchards and the roads."

In the next room, Mustafa Al-Sayed has been waiting with his large family for more than a year to return to his southern village of Beit Lif.

He had been forced to leave once before, during the previous war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006.

"Do we have to take our families and flee every 20 years?" he asked. "We want a definitive solution, we want the wars to end."