Khaberni - Today, Friday, the American Republican Congressman Joe Wilson announced that the Senate voted to repeal the Caesar Act imposed on Syria during the rule of the ousted regime, while Damascus welcomed what it described as a "historic step."
The congressman thanked the US Senate in a post on platform X for passing the repeal of the Caesar Act as part of the National Defense Authorization Act, saying that "severe sanctions were imposed on a regime that fortunately no longer exists," and he emphasized that its complete abolition "now depends on Syria's success," as he expressed.
Wilson announced on June 12 last year that he had introduced legislation to Congress to fully repeal the "Caesar Law" and its sanctions on Syria.
For his part, the Syrian Finance Minister Mohammad Yasir Berniyah considered the US Senate's vote on the decision to repeal the Caesar Law as "the success of Syrian diplomacy in getting rid of the last and most severe US sanctions imposed on the country."
Berniyah said in a post on Facebook that the next step is for the House of Representatives (through a joint committee with the Senate) to approve the same article in the budget of the Ministry of Defense, leading up to President Donald Trump's signing it before the end of the year, thus putting the repeal of the Caesar Law into effect.
Diplomatic Fruit
In turn, the Syrian Minister of Information Hamza Mustafa said that this vote represents "a historic moment for the new Syria and the struggles of its people."
Mustafa added in a post on platform X that the abolition of this law (in the next phase) removes "a cumbersome obstacle in the path of stability and development," considering this development as the fruit of the efforts of Syrian diplomacy and the Syrian diaspora abroad.
At the end of last June, Trump signed an executive order to end the sanctions on Syria with the aim to support reconstruction and building a "Syria that does not provide a haven for terrorist organizations," as he put it.
The executive order did not drop the Caesar Law enacted by Congress in 2019, but it legally paved the way to freeze some of its sanctions, as a US president cannot modify or suspend a law issued by Congress.
Caesar is the alias of the former photographer in the Syrian military police Farid Al-Madzan, who defected from the Syrian regime in 2013, carrying with him 55,000 photos showing torture and violations in Syrian prisons.
American congressmen introduced a bill named "Caesar" in 2016 aimed at "stopping the mass killing of the Syrian people, encouraging a peaceful resolution through negotiation, and holding Syrian human rights violators accountable for their crimes."
After discussions, Congress with both its houses, the House and the Senate, passed the law in December 2019, and it was signed by the American President as part of the Defense Budget Act for 2020.
The law imposed sanctions on Syrian figures and institutions involved in war crimes, and prevented financial dealings with influential figures in the ousted regime of Bashar al-Assad or those affiliated with it.
It also stipulated punishing any local or foreign entity that invests or deals with Syria in sectors such as energy, aviation, or construction and banking, and it also targeted companies and countries supporting the Syrian regime at the time, such as Iran and Russia.
