Online Press Briefing with Acting Under Secretary John Bass
John Bass, Acting Under Secretary for Political Affairs
London Hub
MODERATOR: Greetings to everyone from the U.S. Department of State’s London International Media Hub. I would like to welcome our participants dialing in from Türkiye, Syria, and around the world for this briefing with Acting Under Secretary for Political Affairs John Bass on his travel to Ankara and consultations with the Turkish Government on Syria. We will have 30 minutes for this briefing, which is on the record.
We are pleased to offer this briefing with simultaneous interpretation into Arabic. We therefore ask everyone to keep this in mind and speak slowly.
We will have some opening remarks from our speaker and then he will take questions from participating journalists.
I will now turn it over to Under Secretary Bass for his opening remarks. Sir, the floor is yours.
ACTING UNDER SECRETARY BASS: Thank you, Liz. Colleagues, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever this may find you. I am concluding a one-and-a-half-day visit here in Ankara along with a number of colleagues from other parts of the U.S. Government who traveled with me for the latest set of discussions with interagency colleagues in the Turkish Government under the rubric of a Syria Working Group that we established last year between our two governments.
The principal focus of our visit has been to discuss the latest developments in Syria and ways we can work together, ways we can work with Syria’s other neighbors, and with our allies and partners in the Middle East and Europe to support the ongoing transition in Syria following the collapse of the Assad regime.
Our visit is part of a broader set of United States Government engagements with countries across the region and in Europe on ways we can work together to help the Syrian people seize this opportunity to build a better future.
The meetings here in Ankara, including this latest round this afternoon of our Syria Working Group, have been productive and constructive. And in these in-depth discussions we have focused on ways that, either together or in a complementary fashion, we can support a responsible transition in Syria that, over time, enables the Syrian Government to again take responsibility for and execute the functions of government and of governance that are normally provided by national governments but which for a number of reasons – notably the civil war in Syria in response to the atrocities and repression of the Assad regime – has for many years resulted in significant portions of Syria being outside of the control of the national government, and certainly of responsible national authorities.
An important element of those normal functions of governance that featured in our discussions today were responsibility for international borders, internationally recognized borders, and for internal security within the state. And in that regard, we discussed concrete steps that will need to be taken to ensure that this transition period does not result in the resurgence of Daesh or the resurgence of other foreign terrorist organizations that have been present inside Syria in a way that creates threats for the citizens of Syria, for Syria’s neighbors, or for any other country.
We’ve also discussed in depth a range of steps that the United States and other governments have taken to enable the interim authorities in Damascus to address the immediate needs of the Syrian people, including via support from other governments for things like salaries payments for the civilian administration at the national level, for donations of power or energy, and for some of the other measures that are required to stabilize the Syrian Government, to stabilize the economy, and to give the Syrian people hope that this transition will yield a better future for all of the citizens of the country.
So with that, I am happy to take your questions.
MODERATOR: Thank you, Under Secretary Bass. We will now begin the question-and-answer portion of today’s call. Our first question is a pre-submitted question, and it comes from Serkan Demirtaş of Hurriyet Daily News in Türkiye. And Serkan asks: “What concrete proposals does the United States have to address Türkiye’s security concerns stemming from the YPG presence along its borders?”
ACTING UNDER SECRETARY BASS: Well, the first thing I would say is that the United States believes strongly that the situation in Syria – Syria itself should not pose a threat to any of Syria’s neighbors, to countries in the wider region, or to countries further afield, whether that’s in Europe, the United States, or elsewhere around the world. And my government is very mindful of the enormous challenges that the long-running civil war in Syria and the longstanding presence of Daesh in Syria created for Turkish society. And we greatly admire the generosity of the Turkish Government and the Turkish people in hosting over 3 million refugees for now well over a decade. And it’s in that spirit that we have been engaging today and earlier in discussions about how we can help work together to ensure that as this transition continues inside Syria, that it doesn’t just produce a better, safer environment inside Syria for all Syrians; it also addresses the security concerns of Türkiye, of Iraq, of Jordan, and of Syria’s other neighbors.
With regard to Türkiye, the presence of the YPG, and other foreign terrorist fighters in Syria has been a key focus of our discussion, and we have been very intently focused on working through ways in which we can ensure that the responsibility for security inside of Syria transitions back to the national government from the many armed groups that are present in different parts of Syria that have been in some respects providing local security for portions of Syria, and in ways that will over time strengthen the national government. So in that respect, it is very much a zero-sum equation in the sense that security should be provided by the national government for the national territory of the country.
What we’re working through in this visit and in coming days and weeks is how we can effect a responsible transition. And when I say “effect a transition,” how we can enable the right kind of transition between Syrians in the right kinds of conversations between some of these groups, including the Syrian Democratic Forces, to include the YPG elements in northeastern Syria, and the national government, so that that transition can occur responsibly, so that it contributes to strengthening national forces over time and rebuilding a military and a police service that responsibly fulfills its duties and obligations to the Syrian people. But to do that in a way that doesn’t create immediate risk, whether it’s inside Syria, whether it’s here in Türkiye, or for other governments from other terrorist organizations that might seek to take advantage of that transition period.
So it is a complicated process to help a national government, particularly one that is an interim government that needs to do a lot of internal work with other parts of Syrian society to determine what that government will look like in the future. It’s a complicated process to do that as well as work through the details of resuming these internal security responsibilities for the entirety of the territory. But we and many of our allies and partners, including here in Türkiye, are committed to helping the interim authorities in Damascus be successful in doing so.
MODERATOR: We’ll next take a live question from the queue, and we’ll go to Rabia Iclal Turan of Anadolu Agency. Rabia, please go ahead and ask your question.
QUESTION: Thank you, Elizabeth, and thanks, Ambassador, for doing this. A follow-up on north Syria, please. Turkish Foreign Minister Fidan recently gave an ultimatum to the PKK/YPG in Syria, stating that the PKK fighters and leaders from other countries must leave, and shortly after Secretary Blinken said during a press conference in Paris that Washington and Ankara are working on the departure of the quote-unquote “foreign members” of the SDF. So is there a consensus between Washington and Ankara on the removal of the PKK elements from Syria? Do you call on the PKK to leave Syria?
And secondly, a quick one, if I may. We understand that President-elect Donald Trump has a different approach to Syria compared to the current Administration, which has only 10 days left in the office. How does this impact your engagements with Ankara? Thank you.
ACTING UNDER SECRETARY BASS: So as Secretary Blinken noted, we are in agreement with the Government of Türkiye and a number of other governments that Syria cannot be, should not be in the future a safe haven for foreign terrorist organizations or foreign terrorist fighters, and we believe that any foreign terrorist that is present inside Syria should leave the country. Ideally, many of those people will be returning to their countries of origin, their countries of nationality, through a responsible process that involves those governments, potentially to face justice for their actions.
But they should no longer be present in Syria contributing to instability in the country, and that includes any foreign terrorists who have taken advantage of the long-term instability in Syria to set up shop in – whether it’s in northeastern Syria, whether it’s in southwestern or southern or southeastern Syria. It’s – we’re not specifying or picking and choosing among foreign terrorist organizations, and we understand this Turkish Government’s priority on addressing the most immediate concern for Türkiye’s government and its citizens and wider society.
At the same time, we think it’s quite important that we work together on this transition and the departure of any foreign terrorist fighters in ways that don’t contribute to creating more instability in Syria, that don’t create new opportunities for Daesh to undertake terrorist activities or to try to break members of the organization out of prison, and to make sure that the actions that we see the interim authorities taking to create and expand security within the country contribute to improving security conditions for all Syrians.
MODERATOR: Next we’ll take a question from the chat, and it goes to Ahmad Zakaria from Syria 24. And Ahmad asks: “What is the fate of al-Hol camp in the countryside of al-Hasakah and the prisons housing ISIS members in eastern Syria? Are there any upcoming plans concerning them?”
ACTING UNDER SECRETARY BASS: So the discussion today reflected a series of discussions that the United States, Türkiye, the Government of Iraq, and a number of other governments have had regarding the importance of ensuring that over time the population of the detention facilities in Syria is reduced and that the people who are currently resident in those facilities are able to go back to their countries of origin to be reintegrated into those societies. And we’ve seen important progress in recent weeks and months to reduce the overall population of al-Hol, and we are committed to continuing our support for the efforts to repatriate those family members of extremists who have been present there and to help ensure that they can have a humane transition and reintegration into the societies from which they originated.
MODERATOR: Thank you. Next we’ll take a question from the live queue, and we’ll go to Abdulhalim Sulaiman of Independent Arabia in Iraq. Abdulhalim, please go ahead and ask your question.
QUESTION: Good evening. Thank you, Elizabeth. (Inaudible) Mr. John, I will cut interpretation. Wait just a minute.
Okay, my question is: Are there any negotiation between Türkiye and Syrian Democratic Forces under your supervision, sir? And is there any agreement on disarming the border area and deploying international forces, perhaps French and American, around Kobani and another area in the border in northeast Syria? And what is the – Türkiye’s response to your efforts there? Thank you.
ACTING UNDER SECRETARY BASS: Thank you for your question. We believe – the United States believes – that, as I mentioned earlier, that the national government of Syria should, over time, once again, resume responsibility for the internationally recognized borders of Syria and resume responsibility for appropriate border control and border security for Syria’s borders.
How quickly that can occur is in part a function of the capacity of the interim authorities to assume those responsibilities and to be able to provide effective border management in coordination with Syria’s neighbors. There are different dynamics, as you know, along different parts of Syria’s border with the different neighbors, so I don’t know that there is a precise timetable or – in which this will occur. But we are committed to doing everything we can to help create the conditions that will enable a national government to again resume those important responsibilities.
Part of an effective transition and part of ensuring there is good, positive momentum and forward progress that allows for the interim government to gradually over time develop capacity and give the Syrian people and the international community confidence that they are working to be responsible members of the international community and to meet the needs of the Syrian people is to ensure that there is not a resumption of large-scale fighting within Syria and that groups within the country that have vied for control of certain areas or previously resolved differences through violence are no longer doing that and that they are contributing to supporting the restoration of normal functions of government, whether that’s at the national level or at the local level in terms of the administration of different cities and areas of Syria.
So that’s the paradigm within which we’re working, and we are making clear to everyone within Syria with whom we have partnerships or with whom we’ve worked that our expectation as a government is that they will contribute constructively to this transition and support the re-creation of a national government in Damascus that is a responsible government, responsible to its own citizens and responsible to its neighbors and to the international community.
MODERATOR: Next we’ll take a pre-submitted question from Dilhan Deniz Kilislioğlu from NTV in Türkiye, and Dilhan Deniz asks: “Will the United States take further steps in lifting sanctions on Syria? And what would be the response if Türkiye were to launch an operation in Syria?”
ACTING UNDER SECRETARY BASS: So as you may have noticed, the United States earlier this week took important steps to provide provisions under our existing sanctions regime that substantially expand the range of economic activities and the range of support that governments can provide to the interim government to allow it to function effectively, to ensure that basic services can be provided to the Syrian people, and to make sure that conditions do not worsen for the citizens of Syria during this transitional period.
So we have authorized some very specific types of activities, including financial support from other governments for the interim authorities in Damascus, to ensure that technocrats, civil servants within the Syrian state can be paid and paid at a living wage, if I can use that term; to enable provision of electricity or fuel to generate electricity or meet other needs that address some of the key challenges the society has faced; and another – a wider range of some economic activities.
And we’ve also made sure that private financial transactions between Syrians outside of the country and Syrians inside of the country can occur so that people who have been displaced over the years by this terrible conflict can support family members or relations who are still inside the country in this challenging period.
We are continuing to talk with a number of governments, notably Syria’s neighbors but also countries in the Gulf and in the Arab world and in Europe, about additional ways in which we and other countries and organizations that have sanctions regimes can make adjustments to those regimes to allow for the kinds of immediate support that are required to enable the interim authorities to undertake a successful transition and to help the Syrian people begin to address the many needs that have built up over years of violence and suffering and repression by the Assad regime.
MODERATOR: Next, we’ll take a question from the live queue, and we’ll go to Mohamed Shehoud of Asharq News. Mohamed, please, go ahead and ask your question.
QUESTION: Thank you. I need to ask about the engage between the current Administration, Biden administration, and the incoming Trump administration, regarding Syria – and how the connection with your ongoing effort about removing HTS or sanctions, or with Ahmed al-Sharaa.
ACTING UNDER SECRETARY BASS: Thank you. I am a senior official of the current United States Government. I can’t speak for the next U.S. administration, nor can I offer any insights at this time into how U.S. policy might change under the next administration.
But I’m confident that those of our colleagues in the U.S. Government who have been intently focused on these issues will do our very best to make sure that new colleagues who are entering our government with the change in administration will, to the best of our ability, be provided with as much information as possible about ongoing conditions and dynamics, about the steps that the current U.S. Administration has taken to try to support the interim authorities and address the needs of the Syrian people, and some of the opportunities and potential risks associated with steps that the new administration might choose to take, to ensure that our next government in the United States can make informed choices about the policy decisions that they face and about the policies and actions that they will choose to pursue with regard to Syria.
MODERATOR: We’ll stay in the live queue and take a question from Diyar Kurda from Rudaw Media Network. Diyar, please, go ahead and ask your question.
QUESTION: Thank you so much, Elizabeth. So thank you so much, Ambassador, for doing this. I have one question. The Kurdish officials in the past few days have floated the idea of U.S. and French troops could secure the Syrian northern border in – to address the Türkiye security concerns. Have you touched that issue with the Turkish officials? And overall, what’s the U.S. position on that idea? Thank you.
ACTING UNDER SECRETARY BASS: Thank you. So obviously I can’t speak on any level for the French Government. What I can say with regard to my own government is that we are intently focused on the very real security concerns of the Turkish Government and Turkish society with regard to the extent to which foreign terrorists, including the PKK, have at times taken advantage of the situation inside Syria, and the importance of ensuring that this transitional period in Syria does not lead to additional risks to Türkiye, to Iraq, or to frankly any of Syria’s neighbors.
I would also say that we are very attuned in our government to the dynamics in which some people, some governments might see the presence of U.S. troops as providing reassurance; but we are also aware that some groups or individuals might seek to take advantage of the presence of U.S. forces to engage in activities which undercut the security of one of the neighboring countries, including Türkiye. And we do not want to see that result, and we are being very careful as a result of that perspective that we have to make sure that any adjustments that we might make to our presence and the activities of the United States forces inside Syria are engaged in to ensure that it doesn’t increase risk or jeopardy for the neighboring countries.
Our military presence inside Syria is for a very specific purpose, and that is to ensure that Daesh does not again become a threat to the people of Syria, the people of Türkiye, the people of Iraq or Jordan or any other country, given the very painful decade in which we have all worked so hard to deal with the geographic caliphate – so-called caliphate – that Daesh created and to restabilize, to help the governments of the countries that Daesh destabilized – to help those governments recover from that terrible experience. We don’t want to see that return, and it’s very much in that spirit that we are evaluating how we can contribute to a successful transition inside Syria.
MODERATOR: We have time for one last question, and it will go to Mohamed Maher from Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper in Egypt. And Mohammad asks: “What is the U.S. position on the Syrian territories occupied by Israel following the collapse of the Assad regime? Does the U.S. envision playing a role in mediating future discussions between Israel and Syria?”
ACTING UNDER SECRETARY BASS: So, I can’t speak to the future given – as I noted earlier – that I’m a member of the current Administration which will be departing office next week. But I can say that the United States government believes that all of Syria’s neighbors should work through this period – this transitional period – with the perspective of, of course, addressing their own national security concerns but doing that in ways that do not contribute to creating additional instability inside Syria or distracting the transitional authorities from concentrating on a responsible transition and on the very real and pressing needs and concerns of the Syrian people.
MODERATOR: And that concludes today’s call. I’m sorry that we could not get to all questions today. I would like to thank Under Secretary Bass for joining us, and I would like to thank all of our journalists for participating. If you have any questions about today’s call, you may contact the London International Media Hub at MediaHubLondon@state.gov.
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