The United States is seeking to remove Ahmad al-Sharaa, the transitional president of Syria, and Anas Khattab, the Minister of Interior, from the UN Security Council’s terrorism lists, according to a report by the American outlet al-Monitor.
The website, citing unnamed diplomatic sources described as “well-informed,” reported on Tuesday, August 5, that the United States is pushing for the lifting of sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council on the Syrian president and the now-dissolved Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.
It remains unclear whether al-Sharaa’s name will be delisted before his scheduled trip to the United Nations Summit in New York in September, where he is expected to deliver the first address by a Syrian president at the UN since 1967, according to the report.
According to al-Monitor, Washington has circulated a draft resolution to Britain and France calling for the removal of both al-Sharaa and Khattab from the UN’s counter-terrorism sanctions list, which targets al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.
The Syrian president and the interior minister still require special approvals from the UN to travel internationally by air, the report noted.
The U.S. draft resolution also includes exemptions from certain sanctions to facilitate commercial activities within Syria, as well as limited exemptions from the arms embargo for select UN agencies to carry out demining operations and other tasks, without categorizing their equipment as dual-use.
Excluding the Delisting of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)
According to the sources cited by al-Monitor, the original U.S. draft aimed to remove Hayat Tahrir al-Sham from the list of terrorist entities. However, anticipating opposition from Security Council members such as China, the U.S. removed this clause from the updated text and will instead pursue delisting HTS through the UN’s Sanctions Committee, which operates behind closed doors.
The report indicated that the main obstacle to removing HTS’s terrorist designation at the Security Council is China, a permanent member, which is concerned about the integration of Uyghur fighters—previously affiliated with the Turkistan Islamic Party—into the formal Syrian military. The Turkistan Islamic Party is a transnational jihadist group seeking to establish an Islamic state in Xinjiang and Central Asia.
Many fighters from the party were reportedly appointed to leadership roles in the new Syrian army, which formed the 84th Division specifically to incorporate Uyghur fighters and other foreign militants.
Maya Ungar, an analyst with the International Crisis Group, stated, “China was immediately hesitant about the idea of delisting HTS as an entity.” She added that Beijing wants to use these sanctions as leverage to pressure the Syrian government to take action regarding the Uyghurs.
According to a diplomatic source familiar with the talks, Russia, formerly a close ally of Assad, is among the countries that consider the delisting of HTS premature and is demanding measures from the Syrian government regarding foreign fighters and the protection of minorities.
Despite the concerns raised in the American report, Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani recently met with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov and President Vladimir Putin in Moscow at the end of July.
During the visit, President al-Sharaa received an official invitation to attend the upcoming Arab-Russian Summit, scheduled for mid-October.
Meanwhile, China continues to maintain limited diplomatic engagement with Syria.
Previous U.S. Move
On July 8, the United States officially removed Hayat Tahrir al-Sham from its terrorism lists, in coordination with the Attorney General and the Secretary of the Treasury, and signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Jabhat al-Nusra, the former name of HTS, was a jihadist group founded by Syrian President al-Sharaa—then known as Abu Mohammad al-Jolani—which emerged in 2012, months after the outbreak of the Syrian revolution.
The group was listed as a terrorist organization before its leader changed the name to Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, then later dissolved it and severed ties with al-Qaeda, leading to the creation of a coalition of opposition factions under the name Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.
In recent years, HTS has gradually sought to distance itself from al-Qaeda’s ideology, a shift that became clear after it took over the reins of governance in Syria following the fall of the former Syrian regime on December 8, 2024, after an extensive 11-day military campaign.
The relationship between the United States and the new Syrian administration underwent a significant transformation following the regime’s collapse. Washington began by canceling a $10 million reward on December 20, 2024, previously offered for information on the HTS leader who led the campaign to topple Assad and subsequently assumed the Syrian presidency.
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