TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20 , 2020. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE A
BY SARAH DADOUCHTwo senior U.S. officials visited
Damascus in August for secret
talks about the fate of missing
American journalist Austin Tice,
sanctions and the U.S. military
presence in Syria, in rare high-lev-
el negotiations, according to a
newspaper aligned with the Syr-
ian government.
According to the report in Al
Watan newspaper, U.S. Ambassa-
dor Roger Carstens, a special en-
voy for hostage affairs, and Kash
Patel, a top White House counter-
terrorism adviser, met with Ali
Mamlouk, the head of Syria’s in-
telligence agency, in his office in
the capital.
The visit, first reported by the
Wall Street Journal, comes as the
White House has been pressing
Syria to release Tice, a freelance
journalist abducted in Syria in
2012 and believed to be held there
by the Syrian government or al-
lied forces.
Citing unnamed sources, Al
Watan said that the trip was not
the first visit by high-level U.S.
diplomats and that three similar
visits to Damascus had taken
place in past years. The newspa-
per stressed that, during the Au-
gust visit, the Syrian government
refused to discuss “kidnapped”
Americans and sanctions until ef-
fective talks on U.S. withdrawal
from Syria were underway.
American troops have been
present in areas of northeastern
Syria held by the U.S.-backed
Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic
Forces as well as in eastern Syria,
where the United States has a
military base. Over the past few
months, clashes have occurred in
the northeast between U.S. troopsand Russian troops, which back
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
A report by Russian-operated
Sputnik last week said a new U.S.
military base is being built in
northeast Syria, sparking anger in
Damascus. The U.S.-led coalition
has said it is not building any new
bases.
On Friday, the head of Leba-
non’s general security directorate,
Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim, met
with U.S. hostage envoy Robert
O’Brien in Washington, sources
said. He was expected to raise the
cases of T ice and Majd Kamalmaz,
a psychotherapist from Arlington,
Va., who was arrested shortly after
he arrived in Damascus in 2017 to
visit relatives.
Tice’s parents, Marc and Debra
Tice, welcomed the reports of dis-
cussions between U.S. and Syrian
officials. “For years we have
pushed for engagement between
the US and Syrian governments to
help bring our son safely home, so
we hope recent reports are accu-
rate. We are deeply grateful to
everyone working for Austin’s safe
return, and his continued absence
shows there is more to be done,”
the Tices said in a statement.
In March, President Trump
said he was “working very hard
with Syria” to free Tice and urged
Damascus to work with the Unit-
ed States. “If you think about what
we’ve done, we’ve gotten rid of the
ISIS caliphate in Syria. We’ve
done a lot for Syria,” he said.
“... So it would be very much
appreciated if they would let Aus-
tin Tice out. Immediately.”
[email protected]Carol Morello in Washington and
Louisa Loveluck in Baghdad
contributed to this report.Report: U.S., Syria h eldsecret talks in AugustBILAL HUSSEIN/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Marc and Debra Tice hold photos of son Austin in 201 7. U.S. and
Syrian officials have reportedly discussed the missing journalist.BY JOHN HUDSON
AND MAX BEARAKPresident Trump announced on
Monday his intention to remove
Sudan from a list of state sponsors
of terrorism in a pre-election gam-
bit that U.S. officials expect will
lead to the country’s recognition of
Israel and payment of millions of
dollars to the families of terrorism
victims.
“GREAT news! New govern-
ment of Sudan, which is making
great progress, agreed to pay
$335 MILLION to U.S. terror vic-
tims and families,” Trump said in a
tweet as he traveled to Arizona for
a campaign event.
The president added that Sudan
would need to deposit the funds
before it would be taken off the
terrorism list.
In a response to the tweet, Suda-
nese Prime Minister Abdalla Ham-
dok thanked Trump and stressed
that the designation had caused
serious “harm” to Sudan.
Removing Sudan from the list is
expected to provide a significant
economic boost to the country.
Since 1993, the designation has
barred the government from inter-
national dollar transactions and
thwarted investments and the
country’s ability to pay off interest-
laden loans totaling tens of billions
of dollars.
But the expected move carries
risks for the fledging government
in Khartoum.
Talks nearly faltered in the past
several weeks as Sudanese officials
feared that a rushed recognition of
Israel, without a large-enough eco-
nomic relief package to sweeten
the deal, could turn popular sup-
port against a precarious, unelect-
ed transitional government, which
took power after Sudan’s longtime
autocratic ruler was overthrown
last year.
As a result, the Monday an-
nouncement did not include any
mention of Israel, which is unpop-
ular in Sudan.
“At long last, JUSTICE for the
American people and BIG step for
Sudan!” Trump tweeted.
Officials expect Sudanese offi-
cials to announce the recognition
of Israel at a later date.
Still, analysts described it as a
watershed moment for a fragile
government seeking to overcome
its pariah status.
“This announcement has both
huge symbolic and practical
meaning to Sudan,” said Cameron
Hudson, a senior fellow at the At-
lantic Council and former chief of
staff to the State Department’s spe-
cial envoy to Sudan. “Practically, it
removes a stigma that has deterred
outside investment. It also frees up
the international financial institu-
tions and other commercial banks
to reenter the country. This will
move Sudan away from cash-
based financing and through more
diverse and reputable banking
partners in the U.S. and Europe.”
Some in Congress have worried
that a deal would jeopardize com-
pensation funds for the families of
American victims of the terrorist
attacks targeting the U.S. embas-
sies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998
and the USS Cole in 2000. The
victims’ families are seeking a
$355 million settlement from Su-
dan because of its role in harboring
the men who carried out the plots.
Democrats in Congress are
holding up legislation that would
restore Sudan’s sovereign immuni-
ty, the legal doctrine that makes
governments immune to civil suits
or criminal prosecution. Sudan
lost that immunity when it was put
on the U.S. terrorism-sponsor list.
The delisting comes at a crucial
moment of economic vulnerability
for Sudan. Inflation has spiraled
past 200 percent, and basic items
including wheat and gas are in
short supply. In some cases, lines at
food stores and gas stations stretch
for miles. Meanwhile, the worst
flooding in a century has left more
than half a million people home-
less and destroyed a season of har-
vest. Pandemic-related border clo-
sures have dramatically reduced
exports and driven up unemploy-
ment.
Much of Sudan’s hinterland re-
mains in low-level conflict, sup-
pressing regional economies, and
the country has still barely recov-
ered from the economic shock of
South Sudan’s secession in 2011,
which caused a sudden decline in
oil revenue for the government in
Khartoum.
Economic troubles, and bread
lines in particular, served as the
spark for street protests that swept
Sudan in early 2019 and precipitat-
ed the military’s ouster of Omar
al-Bashir, who had led the country
for 30 years and stands accused of
war crimes and genocide by the
International Criminal Court in
addition to claims by his critics of
ruinous economic mismanage-
ment. (ICC representatives were in
Sudan this week to discuss the
possibility of trying Bashir without
removing him from prison in
Khartoum.)
Sudan’s prime minister, former-
ly an economist and now head of a
transitional civilian government
that shares power with a council of
generals, had been pushing
through economic reforms. Last
month, the International Mon-
etary Fund announced a key step
forward in that process: a year-
long monitoring program that,
once complete, could couple with
the terrorism delisting as the basis
for clearing all of Sudan’s arrears to
international lending institutions
if the country’s reforms were
found to be sincere and fully im-
plemented.
“Sudan’s external debt is high
and with long-standing arrears
which severely limit access to ex-
ternal borrowing,” Antoinette
Sayeh, deputy managing director
and acting chair of the IMF’s exec-
utive board, said in a statement. “A
strong track record of macroeco-
nomic performance and imple-
mentation of reforms, together
with a comprehensive strategy of
arrears clearance and debt relief
supported by Sudan’s develop-
ment partners, is required for ad-
dressing Sudan’s high debt over-
hang.”
The upcoming rapprochement
with Israel represents a major re-
versal from the Bashir era. For
decades, Sudan was one of Israel’s
staunchest opponents, and Bashir
offered funding and arms to the
Palestine Liberation Organization,
Hamas and Hezbollah — part of
the United States’ reasoning for
designating Sudan as a state spon-
sor of terrorism. Sudan also har-
bored Osama bin Laden until 1996,though it denies any role in the
Sept. 11, 2001, a ttacks. M any Suda-
nese say that because Bashir has
been removed from office, t heir
country should already have been
taken off the terrorism list.
While both governments have
sought to portray the two issues as
separate, the normalization of ties
with Israel had not been part of
Hamdok’s plan until American ne-
gotiators introduced it as part of a
delisting deal. The issue remains
hugely contentious in Sudan,
where pro-Palestinian sentiment
is strong, and groups from across
the political spectrum have ex-
pressed displeasure, if not anger,
with the unelected transitional
government for allowing it into thedelisting process.
For that reason, some analysts
criticized the Trump administra-
tion effort as self-serving and po-
tentially reckless.
“Washington should already
have delivered the kind of political
and economic relief necessary for
Sudan’s make-or-break transition
to succeed,” said Zach Vertin, a
nonresident fellow at the Brook-
ings Institution. “Instead, the
Trump administration held out,
extorting a fragile democracy in
the service of its own domestic
political ends.”
[email protected]
[email protected]Bearak reported from Nairobi.Trump says he will take Sudan off terrorism list
Maryland.
Since 2015, Erekat has been the
secretary general of the Palestine
Liberation Organization Execu-
tive Committee. A member of the
ruling Fatah party and a commit-
ted proponent of an independent
Palestinian state, he is considered
one of Palestinian Authority Pres-
ident Mahmoud Abbas’s closest
allies.
“Saeb Erekat has been the cen-
tral figure in Palestinian negotia-
tions with Israel, or in decisions to
stay out of such negotiations, for
over two decades,” said Dan Sha-
piro, former U.S. ambassador to
Israel. “Outside of Palestinian Au-
thority President Mahmoud Ab-
bas himself, there is no one who
has had such influence on thesedecisions.”
Erekat was diagnosed with pul-
monary fibrosis and traveled to
the United States for a lung trans-
plant three years ago. He made a
nearly complete recovery and
maintained a full professional
schedule afterward.
“I feel as good as I’ve ever felt,”
he told a Washington Post report-
er during a 2019 interview in
Jericho, his hometown. Erekat
spent the first weeks of his illness
at his family home there.
The West Bank has seen more
than 4,200 positive cases of the
coronavirus, with an estimated
death toll of more than 350. Un-
like neighboring Israel, the Pales-
tinian Authority declined to im-
pose a second general lockdown;BY STEVE HENDRIXjerusalem — Saeb Erekat, a top
Palestinian leader who tested pos-
itive for the novel coronavirus this
month, was placed on a ventilator
Monday and is in critical condi-
tion at an Israeli hospital, the
facility said in a statement.
Erekat, well known to diplo-
mats as the Palestinians’ chief
negotiator and the leader most
frequently quoted by Western me-
dia, was rushed from his West
Bank home to a hospital in Tel
Aviv on Sunday, then transferred
to Jerusalem’s Hadassah Ein Ker-
em Medical Center.
The 65-year-old has a history of
respiratory illness and underwent
a lung transplant in 2017. Erekat is
also f ighting a bacterial infection,
the hospital said.
His daughter tweeted late Sun-
day that her father was stable in a
coronary care unit, where he was
receiving high flows of oxygen.
But his condition worsened over-
night, the hospital said.
“His situation is not good,” his
brother told Agence France-
Presse.
Erekat was not the only high-
profile Palestinian leader to con-
tract the virus in recent weeks.
Longtime activist and official
Hanan Ashrawi tested positive for
the coronavirus Oct. 11.
Erekat has played a central role
in Palestinian politics and diplo-
macy for decades. Since the early
1990s, he has been a high-ranking
member of or led negotiating
teams in Madrid, Oslo and Wash-
ington and at Camp David in
infections in the territory began
to climb after restrictions were
lifted following the Ramadan hol-
idays.
Palestinian officials have said
they are hamstrung in clamping
down on transmission of the virus
because of the thousands of work-
ers who cross back and forth to
Israel every day.
In recent months, Erekat has
been central to a pitched battle of
wills between the Palestinian
leadership and the government of
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu. In response to Netan-
yahu’s avowed plans to annex
Jewish settlements in the West
Bank, the Palestinian Authority
cut off long-standing cooperation
with Israel on security and finan-
cial issues.
The loss of tax transfers has
sparked a financial crisis in the
territories, but the leadership re-
fused to budge even after Netan-
yahu shelved annexation plans as
part of a diplomatic accord with
the United Arab Emirates.
Some Arab states hailed that
deal as a breakthrough, but Er-
ekat and Abbas doubled down on
their decades-long insistence that
no agreements should be signed
until Israel withdraws from the
West Bank and recognizes a Pales-
tinian state.
“The question today is not
about hardship for Palestinians,”
Erekat said at the time. “We have
had hardship all our lives. We
need to finish this. We need our
independence. We need our free-
dom.”
[email protected]Key Palestinian o∞cial critically ill with covid-
MAYA ALLERUZZO/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Paramedics a t the Jerusalem hospital where S aeb Erekat, a central
figure in Palestinian diplomacy, was placed on a ventilator Monday.DEMOCRATS MUST WITHHOLD THEIR VOTE ON TRUMP’S LATE TERM NOMINEE
JUST AS REPUBLICANS WITHHELD THEIR VOTE ON PRESIDENT OBAMA’SIF THE SENATE DEMOCRATS LACK THE COURAGE AND THE PATRIOTISM TO WITHHOLD THEIR VOTE FOR A LATE TERM SUPREME
COURT NOMINEE AS THE SENATE REPUBLICANS DID IN 2016, THEY WILL HAVE BETRAYED THOSE THAT VOTED THEN INTO
OFFICE TO GIVE THEM THE POWERS TO DEFEND THEM AND WILL GO DOWN IN HISTORY AS THOSE THAT THREW AWAY THE
SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC PROGRESS OF THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS THAT DEMOCRATS FOUGHT AND SOME DIED FOR AND
POSSIBLY GAVE THE 250 YEAR OLD DEMOCRACY AWAY.And why? To cater to Trump supporters in their state for their reelection. What is the value of their reelection if they throw away everything they said they
believed in to get it?THEY CAN WITHHOLD THEIR VOTE AND REFUSE TO PROVIDE A QUORUM IN COMMITTEEON SUNDAY, OCTOBER 11, SENATE LEADER SCHUMER SAID:“DEMOCRATS WILL NOT SUPPLY THE QUORUM, PERIOD,”We the progressives in the democratic base who have fought for these landmark cases WILL HOLD SENATOR SCHUMER TO HIS
WORD AND WE WILL HOLD EVERY DEMOCRATIC MEMBER OF THE SENATE JUDICIARY
COMMITTEE: SEN.LEAHY, SEN.DURBIN, SEN. WHITEHOUSE,SEN. KLOBUCHAR, SEN. COONS,
SEN. BLUMENTHAL, SEN. HIRONO, SEN. BOOKER, & SEN. HARRIS. We recall that he also said he would use all of his
tools to delay or stop the Kavanagh nomination but caved to pressure and used none of them that were provided to democratic voters to legislators to exercise on their
behalf; instead he relied on the kindness of a republican, Susan Collins who in the end voted for Kavanagh.
Additionally, senate rules require 2 democrats in attendance to conduct the business of the senate judiciary committee; an additionally they can refuse to provide
a quorum on the senate floor as was done throughout the 19th century and as was recommended by Senator Carl Levin for the impeachment vote for bill Clinton.
That vote was held during an active military engagement in the Balkans and on the subject unrelated to presidential duties. The present nomination attempt is even
less honorable and legitimate in that the republicans are making no pretense that they are violating their own proclamations they made as members of the senate
judiciary committee not to hold a confirmation hearing during an election and deprive the American people of their say in this lifetime appointment. Because it is
a lifetime appointment on the most consequential judicial body in the nation, the right of the people to know the most about and THE DUTY OF THE
SENATORS TO ELICIT THAT INFORMATION FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE IS AT ITS ZENITH. The
nominee has refused to answer hypothetical questions and has refused to answer questions of fact and questions of law. What does that leave to make any determination
of fitness for a lifetime appointment on the highest court? She has done everything she could do to subvert the advice and consent process. Democratic senators have
contributed to and submissively complied with the subversion of the process by refusing to push back and insist on her providing the level of information the senate in its
constitutional role and the American people require before a handing over to any individual such power in the American government. Senators have been complicit in
this abdication of their duty since the Thomas and senator confirmation hearings. Additionally, the senate has shamed themselves already this year by leaving their safe
spaces to cause a COVID-19 spreader event on the senate floor to give Mitch McConnell the quorum so that he could confirm overtly ideological judges some of whom had
no recommendation from the American Bar Association. What a disgrace it would be if they repeated this irresponsible example of violating the CDC recommendations
on the size of gatherings to do virtually the exact same thing. They would be a responsible for everyone including their own families they subsequently in fact if they
become infected from other senators. In what universe can they call that leadership? If it is knowing, it falls closer to criminal liability. They commit the same violation
by spending hours in the same senate room with two republican senators who were just diagnosed with the disease and who refuse to wear masks. They will have to
explain it to their families that we the American people will have observed their irresponsible participation and legitimization of this 11th hour naked political act.
The Trump triumvirate of Gorsuch, Kavanagh and Cone with the compliance of Thomas and Alito we’ll end:- THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT and protections for preexisting conditions
- A CLIMATE CHANGE RESPONSE, and will assure:
a. the continued ejection of high levels of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from coal plants known to cause black lung disease,
high levels of asthma for those living downwind from these plants. - a WOMAN’S RIGHT TO CHOOSE,
- The ability to overturn CITIZENS UNITED, allowing:
a. unlimited amounts of corporate money
b. covering up dark money from unknown sources that can include foreign sources to disproportionately influence our elections. - THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT
ADDITIONALLY IT WOULD BE LEGISLATIVE MALPRACTICE FOR SENATE DEMOCRATS TO PRETEND THAT SHE WILL RECUSE HERSELF FROM THE FIRST VOTE WHEN TRUMP SEEKS TO STOP THE VOTING BEFORE THE VOTES ARE
COUNTED AS HAPPENED IN THE YEAR 2000 (AND THAT HAPPENED BY A ONE VOTE MARGIN ON THE SUPREME COURT) OR TO RECUSE HERSELF FROM THE VOTE TO CHALLENGE THE PROVISION OF ELECTORS THAT DO NOT
REPRESENT THE VOTE OF THEIR STATE.Is this how to honor the legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Lewis?United Progressives
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