Three American representatives visit an opposition-held area in northern Syria

Three members of the US House of Representatives undertook a rare visit to a region in northern Syria controlled by opposition factions aligned with Turkey, according to a team from AFP on site.

Joe Wilson, Victoria Spartz, and Dean Phillips visited a hospital in the city of Azaz (Aleppo province), arriving from Turkey through the Bab al-Salam border crossing. They were greeted with a sign that read "Welcome to Free Syria," surrounded by Syrian revolutionary flags.

Yasser al-Hajji, the Public Relations officer for the Turkey-backed interim government, stated to AFP that "the purpose of the visit is to observe the reality in liberated areas."

The lawmakers met with orphans, a consequence of the war that has claimed over half a million lives since 2011. The visit was cut short due to security reasons, as confirmed by one of their escorts to AFP.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham controls approximately half of Idlib province (northwest) and adjoining areas in Aleppo, Latakia, and Hama provinces.

There are also other opposition factions with varying degrees of influence, supported to different extents by Turkey.

Rami Abdul Rahman, the director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, indicated that "to avoid controversy in the United States, they did not go to Jinderes, the areas controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham."

Despite publicly severing ties with Al-Qaeda, Washington still classifies the group as a "terrorist" organization.

Abdul Rahman added that "members of Congress wanted to evaluate the interim government's work to assess the possibility of sending humanitarian aid through Bab al-Salam instead of Bab al-Hawa," the latter of which is controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.

Congressman Joe Wilson tweeted on the site "Those seeking normalization and deals with Bashar al-Assad are dealing with death itself."

Under the United Nations mechanism established in 2014, Bab al-Hawa is the only gateway for aid to northwest Syria from Turkey without permission from the Syrian government.

On July 11, this mechanism, denounced by Damascus as a violation of its sovereignty, was not renewed. However, in early August, the United Nations announced an agreement with the Syrian government to allow aid delivery for six months through the Bab al-Hawa crossing.




AFP