(29 May 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Damascus, Syria – 29 May 2025
1. Various of raised U.S. flag outside the residence of the U.S. ambassador to Syria
2. Exterior of ambassador’s residence
3. Various of security outside the ambassador’s residence
4. Various of convoy leaving the ambassador’s residence
5. Exterior of U.S. embassy in Damascus
6. Police vehicle and other cars near the U.S. embassy and U.S. ambassador’s residence
STORYLINE:
The U.S. flag was hoisted Thursday outside of the long-shuttered ambassador’s residence in Damascus, in a signing of growing ties between Washington and the new Syrian government.
U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack, who has also been appointed special envoy to Syria, arrived to inaugurate the residence, Syrian state-run news agency SANA reported.
The U.S. has not formally reopened its embassy in Damascus, which closed in 2012 after protests against the government of then-President Bashar Assad, met by a brutal crackdown, spiraled into civil war.
Assad was unseated in December in a lightning rebel offensive.
But Barrack’s visit and the raising of the flag were a significant signal of warming relations.
Washington was initially circumspect about Syria’s new leaders, led by Ahmad al-Sharaa, the former leader of an Islamist insurgent group that the U.S. still lists as a terrorist organization.
However, the Trump administration – encouraged by two U.S. allies in the region, Saudi Arabia and Turkey – has in recent weeks shown increasing openness to Damascus.
Trump held a surprise meeting with al-Sharaa in Riyadh earlier this month, and the U.S. has begun to roll back decades of sanctions slapped on Syria under the Assad dynasty.
AP video shot by Abd Al-Rahman Shaheen
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