McCaul joins colleagues in denouncing any renewed ties with Assad regime

U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) helped lead a bipartisan contingent of more than 30 lawmakers in expressing “deep concern” to the U.S. State Department that various countries have taken steps to renew formal diplomatic ties with Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad despite his ongoing brutality against the Syrian people.

“Given the regime’s continued deplorable crimes against its own people, we urge the Department of State to continue to make clear — publicly and privately — to our allies and partners that the U.S. opposes any efforts to renew diplomatic ties with or extend formal diplomatic recognition to the Assad regime,” wrote Rep. McCaul and his colleagues, who included House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel (D-NY), and U.S. Reps. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), and Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA), in an Oct. 26 letter sent to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Citing existing American law, the members said that the regime must: cease the bombing of civilian areas and infrastructure; release political prisoners and allow for the safe and voluntary return of refugees and displaced persons; end its support for terrorist groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad; stop research, development and acquisition of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and ballistic missile technology; and allow full, unfettered access to the United Nations and other international observers to verify such activities have indeed ceased, according to their letter.  

“None of these criteria have been met,” they wrote, noting that the regime and its allies, Russia and Iran, “are guilty of barbaric violence against the Syrian people.” 

Rep. McCaul and his colleagues also wrote that they are alarmed that some Middle Eastern countries and others have extended formal diplomatic recognition to the Assad regime.

“We support the position you articulated on June 17, 2020 that the U.S. will not cease its pressure on Assad and “will not stop until Assad and his regime stop their needless, brutal war against the Syrian people and the Syrian government agrees to a political solution to the conflict,” they wrote.