People celebrate at the Umayyad Mosque following the collapse of the 61-year-long Baath regime in Syria and the end of the Assad family's rule in Damascus, Syria, on December 13, 2024. On Wednesday, a U.S. Senate committee advanced legislation to end Assad-era sanctions imposed on Syria. File Photo by Omar Haj Kadour/UPI | License Photo
June 18 (UPI) -- The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has advanced legislation to repeal decades-old sanctions imposed on Syria, as relations between Washington and Damascus continue to thaw.
The committee sent S. 3172 to the full Senate for consideration on Wednesday. The bill seeks to repeal two laws imposed against Syria, the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003 and the Syria Human Rights Accountability Act of 2012.
The first was signed into law in 2003 by President George W. Bush and implemented by executive order to punish the regime of then-Syrian President Bashar al-Assad over its support for terrorism, military presence in Lebanon and weapons programs.
President Barack Obama signed the second law in 2012 in response to the Assad regime's crackdown on protesters, a hard-line response that helped plunge Syria into more than a decade of civil war.
