Austin Tice. Via Twitter.
On August 17, the Syrian government officially denied kidnapping or arresting any US citizen, including missing journalist Austin Tice.
In a statement, Syria’s Foreign Ministry addressed President Biden’s claim last week that Tice is being held by the Syrian government, calling it “invalid accusations against the Syrian government of kidnapping or arresting US citizens, among them Austin Tice, a service member in the US Army.” It added that Tice and others had entered illegally.
“Syria draws attention of US public opinion and officials to the fact that the government of their country has violated the provisions of Vienna Convention on Consular Relations and the provisions of Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations when it turned blind eye and even encouraged dozens of the US citizens to travel to Syria and illegitimately enter its territories and without the permission of its government via illegitimate border crossings or infiltrating to areas controlled by armed terrorist groups, the Ministry went on to say,” the statement reads.
37-year old Austin Tice, a former US Marine Corps infantry officer, went missing while he was covering the battles in the outskirt of the Syrian capital in August of 2012. The free-lance journalist was moving with local rebels.
In September 2012 a 47-second video of Tice blindfolded and surrounded by Islamic radicals was released. Despite this, the US insists that the journalist is being held by Syrian authorities.
“We know with certainty that he has been held by the Syrian regime,” President Biden said in a statement on August 10. “We have repeatedly asked the government of Syria to work with us so that we can bring Austin home.”
A recent report by the CNN revealed that the Biden administration has restored backchannel communication with Syria as part of an effort to discover the fate of Tice. There have been a number of direct interactions, none of which took place in Damascus, but they have thus far yielded no progress.
Syria said that it would only discuss the fate of Tice through public talks based on respecting its “sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity,” calling on the US to fulfill these demands.
“The US side should immediately and unconditionally withdraw its military forces that are illegitimately existed on the Syrian territories, and stop plundering and smuggling the Syrian oil and wheat, lift the cover and protection from the armed separatist groups and the armed terrorist groups which are stationed in the US illegitimate military base of al-Tanf and put a final and unconditioned end to the unilateral coercive measures imposed by the US successive administrations on the Syrian people,” the Syrian Foreign Ministry said.
To this day, the US maintains hundreds of troops in Syria’s northeastern region as well as in al-Tanf garrison in the southeastern region.
The Biden administration will not likely fulfill the demands set by Damascus as it has repeatedly stated its commitment to previous policies on Syria. Pressure from Tice’s parents, who met with President Biden in May, will not likely yield any result.
