State Department: administration will implement president's plan to ease Syria sanctions subject to Syrian actions

The State Department said it will implement the president’s announcement to give Syria a path toward eased sanctions, but officials would not provide detailed timelines or specific conditions from the podium.

Principal Deputy Spokesperson Tommy Pickett said the administration had discussed options for weeks and would begin with “initial waivers instead of fully lifting the sanctions,” echoing a departmental readout of recent diplomatic engagements. He said that actions Syria takes, as outlined in the White House readout, would bear on further easing.

Pickett described meetings between Secretary of State and foreign counterparts (including the Syrian foreign minister and the Turkish foreign minister) as part of discussions that led to the announcement. He said the broader aim is regional stability and that sanctions relief is tied to a set of expectations communicated to Syrian authorities.

Reporters asked whether the United States now recognizes any interim Syrian authority; Pickett declined to characterize recognition decisions from the podium and reiterated that implementation would follow the criteria the president outlined. Questions about protections for minority groups in Syria were raised, but the spokesperson declined to discuss private diplomatic conversations or to preview specific measures.

No new legal determinations or detailed conditionality were announced at the briefing; the department said it would carry out the president’s instructions and that further details would be provided when appropriate.