Baladi News – (Private)
The White House officials have decided to open a "back channel" with the Assad’s regime to discuss the situation of a kidnapped American journalist in Syria since 2012, the New York Times reported. The newspaper added that the contact was made with Ali Mamluk, the head of the National Security Bureaut close to Bashar al-Assad and the direct cause of the outbreak of the uprising in Syria.
To talk about the disappeared journalist, Mike Pompeo, Director of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), spoke with Mamlouk on the phone, which was regarded by the newspaper as the highest level of communication between the Americans and Assad’s regime since the beginning of the Syrian war.
The phone call was made after a declaration by Faisal al-Miqdad, the foreign minister of Assad’s regime, that the American journalist Austin Tice (a former marine soldier) is not held by the regime and that the regime has no information about him.
The American accusation of the regime as the responsible party for kidnapping Tice dates back to the time when a video was posted days after his disappearance. He appeared hand cuffed and behind him there were a number of masked men. The United States held the regime responsible for the disappearance of the journalist, claiming that the purpose of the kidnapping was to throw the accusation at the rebels.
According to various observers of the Syrian affair, now it is not the right time to talk about a back communication channel with Assad’s regime, because “apparently” there is a tension between the United States and the regime after at least two warplanes had been destroyed by the Americans and after more than one US strike against Assad’s forces last month. Therefore, the phone call goes beyond asking about the kidnapped journalist and has to do with many issues linked to the Syria and the region as a whole, or rather, it could be a mere test of the waters.