“We know for certain that he is being held by the Syrian regime,” Biden said in a statement. “We have repeatedly asked the government of Syria to work with us so we can bring Austin home.”
“On the tenth anniversary of his abduction, I’m calling on Syria to end this and help us bring him home,” the president said, adding that “the Tice family deserves answers, and more importantly, they deserve to be reunited with Austin quickly .”
Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad’s government has not publicly acknowledged holding him. Tice, a freelance journalist and Marine Corps veteran, was detained at a checkpoint near Damascus in August 2012 while reporting on the war in Syria.
In a separate statement Wednesday, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said the administration “will continue to pursue every avenue available to bring Austin home and work tirelessly until we can.”
“We continue to urge Syrian officials to fulfill their obligations under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations to recognize the detention of Austin and every other American citizen held in Syria, responsibility under international law and an important step in securing their release,” Blinken said. Another American, Majd Kamalmaz, was detained at a checkpoint in Damascus in February 2017 and has been missing since then.
Biden met with Austin Tice’s parents, Mark and Debra, in early May. After that meeting, Mark Tice told CNN’s Jake Tapper in an interview with “The Lead” that Biden told them that “he supports the efforts that are underway and other efforts that can create a positive movement” to Austin came home.
“One of the efforts that is being made is to push for engagement and engagement that is sustainable” between the U.S. and Syria, Mark Tice said at the time. The two countries do not have diplomatic relations.
In a statement Wednesday, Blinken said that “Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs Roger Carstens will continue to work with the Syrian government in close coordination with the White House, the Hostage Recovery Fusion Cell and our team here at the State Department.”
Carstens secretly traveled to Damascus and met with representatives of the Assad regime in 2020 under the Trump administration. In May of this year, he met with Abbas Ibrahim, a senior Lebanese security official, in Washington “to discuss American citizens who are missing or detained in Syria,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said at the time. Ibrahim, the head of Lebanon’s General Security Directorate, has played a role in securing the release of US detainees in the past, including Sam Goodwin of Syria and Nizar Zika of Iran.
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