Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said on Thursday that his goal during a trip to Jordan and Turkey was to unite countries in the region behind a peaceful transition to a new Syrian government after the fall of the Assad regime.
Mr. Blinken spoke to reporters in Aqaba, Jordan, after meetings with Jordan’s King Abdullah II and its foreign minister, Ayman Safadi.
It is “a time of promise but also peril for Syria and its neighbors,” Mr. Blinken said. He said it was essential that Syria’s new government respect basic principles of human rights, including the protection of minorities and ensuring that Syria “is not used as a base for terrorism by groups like the Islamic State.”
The rebel alliance that toppled President Bashar al-Assad is led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a Sunni Islamist group once affiliated with Al Qaeda, that is labeled a terrorist organization by the United States and others. In recent years HTS has softened its stand on governing according to its religious principles, insisting that it is prepared to work with all sects, but how it will operate in power remains to be seen.
Minutes before his departure for Ankara, Turkey, Mr. Blinken said he had no updates on the status of Austin Tice, a freelance American journalist who has been believed held in Syria for many years. “Every single day we are working to find him and bring him home,” Mr. Blinken said.
In Ankara, Mr. Blinken plans to meet with Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and its foreign minister, Hakan Fidan. Mr. Blinken indicated concern about fresh Turkish offensives against U.S.-backed Kurdish rebels in Syria’s northeast, calling it “really important at this time that we’re not sparking any additional conflicts.”
