The British government on Tuesday removed the group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) from its list of banned terrorist organizations. This group led the alliance of Syrian rebels that helped overthrow President Bashar al-Assad.
HTS, once an affiliate of al-Qaeda, had been designated by London as a terrorist organization in 2017, making any support for or membership in the group illegal, reports the Reuters news agency.
Britain had stated in December of last year that it might reconsider this designation for HTS, while U.S. President Donald Trump removed the Syrian group from the terrorist list in July of this year.
The United Kingdom joined other states in welcoming the end of Assad’s autocratic rule—a development marking one of the most significant turning points for the Middle East in generations—following a long civil war. The then-leader of HTS, Ahmed al-Sharaa, became President of Syria.
In a statement, the British government said that removing HTS from the list of terrorist organizations would enable closer engagement with the new Syrian government and cooperation with the country on dismantling the nuclear weapons program left from Assad’s era.
“The United Kingdom will continue to seek genuine progress and hold the Syrian government accountable for its actions in combating terrorism and restoring stability in Syria and across the region,” the statement read.
Earlier on Tuesday, Syria’s Minister of Economy, Mohammad Nidal al-Shaar, told Reuters during a conference in London that he hoped U.S. sanctions on his country would be formally lifted in the coming months.
In July of this year, then–British Foreign Secretary David Lammy visited Syria, where he met with President Al-Sharaa.
