US Rejects Syria 'Sham' Presidential Elections

The US rejects the “sham” Syrian elections and affirms it doesn’t have a new policy for Syria, noting that it remains fully supportive of UN Security Council Resolution 2254 and Caesar Act approved by US Congress.

In a special briefing, a senior State Department official asserted that Washington supports the resolution which calls for free and fair elections pursuant to a new constitution, administered under the supervision of the UN, in which all Syrians, including those who are internally displaced, those who are refugees, and in the diaspora, should be able to participate.

In response to Asharq Al-Awsat's question whether there might be an ease to implement the Caesar Act, the official asserted that the Act was passed by an overwhelming majority of the US Congress, stressing that the administration is going to implement the law.

"The administration is going to implement the law which seeks to limit the ability of Bashar and others in Syria to profit from the conflict and from any reconstruction that takes place afterward, after the conflict" according to the official.

“So that law is going to remain unless Congress chooses to repeal it. But as I said, with overwhelming bipartisan support for the law’s original passage, that does not look likely anytime soon.”

Regarding the absence of a special envoy to Syria at the moment, the official explained that the administration’s approach is to look carefully at the roles of special envoys and special representatives to appoint them where “absolutely necessary to move processes forward.”

“In Syria, we do not see a partner in Bashar al-Assad and, unfortunately, the sham elections that he is organizing today don’t give us any greater confidence that he is willing to be a partner in peace, but we’re going to continue to try to advance the process that’s set forth in UN Security Council Resolution 2254.”

The official also noted that Bashar’s competitors had zero chance of winning the “sham presidential election” saying he is a classic Baathist and the only question when there’s a presidential election for a “Baathist is will he get 99 percent or 99.9 percent?”

“The elections are neither free nor fair,” said the official, urging the international community to reject this attempt by the Assad regime to claim legitimacy without protecting the Syrian people, without respecting its obligations under international law, including humanitarian law and human rights law, and without meaningfully participating in the UN-facilitated political process to end the conflict.

"It’s very difficult to imagine normalizing diplomatic relations with a regime that’s been so brutal to its own people," he noted in further remarks.

The official said that the US delegation affirmed during its visit east of the Euphrates its commitment to cooperate with the coalition to fight ISIS and maintaining stability in the area, stressing that the US military presence there is exclusively focused on fighting ISIS.

"They are not there for any other reason. They’re not there to protect the oil. They’re not there to exploit the oil resources. Syrian oil is there for the Syrian people, and we do not own, control, or manage any of those resources, nor do we wish to."

“With regard to the US military and diplomatic presence in northeast Syria, it’s not going to change anytime soon,” he noted.