The United States has still not obtained answers from Syria on the disappearance of two Americans, despite a rare visit by a US official to Damascus, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday (October 21st).
Read also: Syria, Mediterranean, Nagorno-Karabakh ... Erdogan's dangerous outbidding
Senior White House official Kash Patel visited in August to try to help free journalist Austin Tice and Majd Kamalmaz, a Syrian-American, the
Wall Street Journal
has revealed
.
This is the first known visit by a senior US official in ten years to Syria, when the two countries no longer have diplomatic relations.
“
We demand that the Syrians release Austin Tice, tell us what they know.
They have chosen not to do so so far,
”lamented Mike Pompeo to journalists who questioned him about this visit.
"
We continue to work on the return not only of Austin but also of all Americans retained,
" he added.
Donald Trump wrote to Bashar al-Assad
Little information has been made public since the kidnapping on August 14, 2012 near Damascus, when he was 31 years old, of this independent photojournalist who worked for the McClatchy group, the
Washington Post
, CBS, Agence France- Press (AFP) and other media.
US President Donald Trump wrote personally in March to his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad, whose legitimacy Washington disputes, in an attempt to secure the journalist's release.
He then said he didn't know if he was still alive.
Mike Pompeo assured that talks to repatriate Austin Tice were "
separate
" from the American strategy in Syria, where the United States still has troops and whose regime is targeted by increasingly draconian sanctions.
"
We are not going to change US policy
" to release nationals, "
we are not paying in exchange for hostages,
" he said.
