US still against countries normalising ties with Assad's Syria, following Jordan push

The US remains against countries normalising ties with the Assad regime in Syria, a State Department official told The New Arab's Arabic-language sister site, Alaraby Aljadeed.

The official, who preferred not to be named, reiterated the US stance on Syria in response to a question on whether the US gave Jordan the green light to normalise ties with Syria.

The official said that Washington "does not express any support for efforts to rehabilitate the Syrian regime or Bashar al-Assad, and the United States will not improve its diplomatic relations with the Assad regime".

"We do not support the normalisation of relations between the regime and other countries," the official added.

Countries in the region - including Jordan, the UAE and Bahrain - have in recent years worked to mend ties with the Syrian regime, cut off since the onset of the war in 2011 when regime forces brutally cracked down on pro-democracy demonstrations.

The US official urged that countries "consider carefully the unimaginable atrocities that the Assad regime has committed against the Syrian people over the past decade, as well as the regime's ongoing efforts to prevent much of the country from accessing humanitarian aid and security".

With much of Washington's attention now focused on the Ukraine war, the Biden administration has been criticised for not laying out a clear strategy for Syria.

Jordan, meanwhile, has said that it is gathering support for "a collective Arab role" to end the war.

Speaking on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly last week, Jordanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Ayman Safadi told The National that Arab states must "assume our role in efforts to bring an end to the Syrian catastrophe".

"There's been no real process to address that crisis in the past few years, it's been status quo politics, and we cannot live with status quo politics," Safadi said.

The Assad regime, however, has repeatedly hampered or walked out of international efforts to bring peace to Syria, including recent constitution talks. 

Assad has also repeatedly stated that he is seeking a military solution to end the war in Syria.