Biden administration renews call on Syria to release American journalist Austin Tice after 12 years

CNN
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The U.S. government has renewed its call on the Syrian government to cooperate in securing the release of Austin Tice on the 12th anniversary of the kidnapping of the American journalist.

“We have repeatedly pressed the government of Syria to cooperate with us so that we can finally bring Austin home. Today, I am again calling for his immediate release,” President Joe Biden said in a statement Wednesday.

Tice, 43, went to Syria as a freelance journalist in the summer of 2012 to cover the war there. He was detained at a checkpoint near Damascus on Aug. 14, 2012, just three days after his 31st birthday.

In a separate statement Wednesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said: “We know the Syrian government is holding Austin, and we have repeatedly offered to find a way to bring him home.”

Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad’s government has not publicly acknowledged that it is holding Tice. The U.S. does not have diplomatic relations with the Syrian regime and has expressed opposition to a rapprochement with Assad.

“This has taken far too long,” Blinken said. “We call on the Syrian government to work with the United States to end Austin’s captivity and provide accountability for other Americans who have gone missing in Syria.”

“We continue to explore all possible solutions that may lead to Austin’s return,” he added.

“Austin went to Syria to show the world the truth about what was happening there,” he said. “We will not relent until we find a way to end Austin’s unjust detention.”

Neither Blinken nor Biden have gone into detail about their efforts to free Tice. At a May 2023 event, the top U.S. diplomat said they were “working with Syria, working with third countries” to try to bring Tice home.

CNN reported in August 2022 that the Biden administration was working directly with the Syrian government to secure Tice’s release. In 2020, during the Trump administration, the president’s special envoy for hostage issues, Roger Carstens, secretly traveled to Damascus and met with representatives of the Assad regime.

Earlier this year, the family of another American detained in Syria, Majd Kamalmaz, announced that he had died in captivity. Kamalmaz, a psychotherapist from Texas, was detained in 2017 at a checkpoint in Damascus while traveling to visit family and was never heard from again.

CNN’s Kevin Liptak contributed to this report.