The Trump administration has revoked the Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designation of Syria’s “Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham,” formerly al-Nusra, according to an order that will be published this week.
The June 23 dated memo was signed by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and was published in a preview of the Federal Register before official publication on Tuesday.
The move comes a week after Trump signed an executive order terminating a US sanctions program on Syria, to help end the country’s isolation from the international financial system and building on Washington’s pledge to help it rebuild after a devastating civil war. The order dismantles the existing US sanctions architecture on Syria and terminates the national emergency first declared in 2004. It also revokes five executive orders issued by previous administrations that formed the foundation of the sanctions program against Damascus.
“In consultation with the Attorney General and the Secretary of the Treasury, I hereby revoke the designation of al-Nusra Front, also known as Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (and other aliases) as a Foreign Terrorist Organization,” Rubio wrote in the memo.
During a trip to Riyadh on May 14, US President Donald Trump said that he would order the lifting of all sanctions on Syria at the request of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. A day later, Trump met with Syria’s interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, the first meeting between a US and Syrian head of state since 2000. The US president said al-Sharaa, previously designated as a terrorist by the US, had “a real shot at holding it together” and is a “young, attractive guy, with a very strong past.”
Al Arabiya, Reuters
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