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The United States issued on January 6 a sanctions exemption for transactions with governing institutions in Syria for six months in the first such move since the fall of the Assad regime a month earlier.
The exemption, known as a general license, also allows some energy transactions and personal remittances to Syria until July 7. The action did not remove any sanctions.
In a statement, the U.S. Treasury said that the move sought “to help ensure that sanctions do not impede essential services and continuity of governance functions across Syria, including the provision of electricity, energy, water, and sanitation.”
The Treasury defined Syria’s governing institutions as departments, agencies and government-run public service providers – including hospitals, schools and utilities – at the federal, regional or local level, and entities involved with the government run by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) across Syria.
It also authorizes transactions in support of the sale, supply, storage or donation of energy, including petroleum and electricity, to or within Syria.
The next day, January 7, the Financial Times reported that Germany was working to ease European Union sanctions on Syria.
Berlin circulated two documents among EU capitals with suggestions for where the bloc’s sanctions could be eased, the FT said, citing two people familiar with the matter.
According to the report, such relief would come gradually and would coincide with safeguarding minority and women’s rights, as well as upholding commitments to ensuring non-proliferation of weapons.
Also on January 7, Damascus International Airport resumed commercial international flights for the first time since the fall of the Assad regime. The airport received a Qatari Airways aircraft from Doha for the first time in over 13 years.
While Syria saw some economic progress over the past week, the timeline for the translational process is yet to be determined by HTS and the security situation is not improving.
On January 9, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which is based in London, said that 218 people have been killed in 125 separate crimes across the country since the fall of the Assad regime. The vast majority of these crimes took place in former strongholds of the regime in the governorates of Hama, Homs, Latakia and Tartus.
The military situation in Syria also continues to deteriorate, especially in the north where the conflict between Turkey and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) is heating up.
On January 8, Turkish drone strikes hit a convoy including first responders and civilian pro-SDF protests that was heading towards Tishreen Dam in the eastern Aleppo countryside, the focal point of the conflict. The strikes killed five people and left at least 14 others wounded.
On the same day, the SDF targeted a Turkish military base near the town of al-Araishah in the northern al-Hasakah countryside, killing a soldier and wounding another.
Separately, the Israeli Defense Forces continue to launch strikes against bases and equipment of the now dissolved Syrian Arab Army.
On January 8, a wave of strikes hit Khalkhalah Air Base in the northern countryside of al-Suwayda. And on January 10, another wave of strikes hit a base near the town of Kiswah in the outskirts of the capital, Damascus.
Khalkhalah
Overall, despite some progress, it is still unclear if Syria will stabilize. Many internal and external factors could throw the country back at war.
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so sanctions are lifted for a terrorist head chopper leader,smh 🤦
goes to show that israel and america have won again.
the guy pictured is a sorry zionist piece of shit.