The US envoy for Syria, Thomas Barrack, raised the American flag over the ambassador’s residence in Damascus on Thursday for the first time since the embassy closed in 2012, a year after conflict broke out.
After months of relatively little engagement with Syria’s new administration, the US has rapidly built ties in recent weeks.
US President Donald Trump met with Syria’s new President Ahmed al-Sharaa in Riyadh in mid-May and his administration eased US sanctions on the country.
Barrack, who is also US ambassador to Turkiye, was named as Syria’s US envoy on May 23 and is on his first official visit to the country.
The US closed its embassy in Damascus in February 2012, nearly a year after protests against then-president Bashar al-Assad devolved into a violent conflict that went on to ravage Syria for more than a decade.
Then-ambassador Robert Ford was pulled out of Syria shortly before the embassy closed. Subsequent US envoys for Syria operated from abroad and did not visit Damascus.
During Syria’s 14-year war, hundreds of thousands of people were killed, millions were displaced both internally and outside the country and the West ratcheted up pressure against Assad by cutting ties and imposing tough sanctions, but he clung onto power with help from Iran and Russia.
Assad was ousted in December 2024, in a lightning rebel offensive spearheaded by Sharaa’s Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, once an affiliate of Al-Qaeda and whose members now form the backbone of Syria’s remade state.
