CNN
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On the 12th anniversary of the American journalist’s kidnapping, the US government renewed its calls on the Syrian government to work with them to secure Austin Tice’s release.
“We have repeatedly urged the Syrian government to work with us so we can finally bring Austin home. Today, I am again calling for his immediate release,” President Joe Biden said in a statement on Wednesday.
Tice, now 43, traveled to Syria in the summer of 2012 as a freelance journalist to report on the war there. On August 14, 2012, just three days after his 31st birthday, he was arrested at a checkpoint near Damascus.
In a separate statement on 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.”
The government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has not publicly acknowledged Tice’s detention. The United States has no diplomatic relations with the Syrian regime and has spoken out against any rapprochement with Assad.
“This has been going on for far too long,” Blinken said. “We call on the Syrian government to work with the United States to end Austin’s captivity and to clarify the fate of other Americans who have disappeared in Syria.”
“We continue to pursue every available avenue that could lead to Austin’s return,” he added.
“Austin traveled to Syria to show the world the truth about what is happening there,” he said. “We will not stop until we find a way to end Austin’s unjust detention.”
Neither Blinken nor Biden elaborated on their efforts to release Tice. At an event in May 2023, the top U.S. diplomat said they were “talking to Syria, talking to third countries” to try to bring Tice home.
CNN reported in August 2022 that the Biden administration had direct contacts with the Syrian government to secure Tice’s release. In 2020, under the Trump administration, Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs 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 there. Kamalmaz, a psychotherapist from Texas, was arrested at a checkpoint in Damascus in 2017 while traveling to visit family and was never heard from again.
CNN’s Kevin Liptak contributed to this report.
