The US House of Representatives approves a bill to counter normalization with Syria
The Foreign Relations Committee of the US House of Representatives approved a bill aimed at confronting normalization with Syria, after Congress members agreed to make minor amendments to the bill, before submitting it to a vote in the House.
The “American Coalition for Syria” said, “The proposed amendments to the original text of the bill included “amending the requirement to add adult relatives to the punished individuals, except if its proved that he is acquitted of his punished relative, or if he doesn’t have a history of helping his relative to hide their wealth”.
The amendment also included approval of “adding financial transactions with the Syrian government to the list of punishable acts in the Caesar Act, provided that they pertain to commercial transactions, which exceed $5 million.
The amendment contained “a clause extending the validity of the Caesar Act to the end of 2023, and a definition of the transactions required to be disclosed as part of the anti-normalization campaign strategy, to include any investment, grant, contract, donation or loan from non-Syrians residing in Turkey or any of the Arab countries”.
On May 11, US lawmakers from both the Republicans and Democrats parties submitted a bill that calls on the US administration not to normalize relations with Syria, and to strengthen Washington’s ability to impose sanctions, in a warning to countries that normalize their relations with the Syrian state.
The bill prevents the US federal government from recognizing the Syrian government, and also expands the Caesar Act that imposes a set of sanctions against Syria since 2020.
Provisions of the bill include a requirement that the US Secretary of State submit an annual strategy over five years that outlines how to counter normalization with Syria, including a list of diplomatic meetings between the Syrian government and Türkiye, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and other countries.
The draft bill also provides for “the application of US sanctions on Syrian Airlines and Cham Wings Airlines, and imposing sanctions on the airport of any country that allows the two airlines to land there”.
This comes after the Arab foreign ministers issued, on May 7, a decision to resume the participation of Syrian delegations in the meetings of the councils of the League of Arab States, during their meeting in Cairo.
