DAMASCUS: Syrian authorities on Saturday announced an interior ministry restructuring that includes fighting cross-border drug and people smuggling as they seek to improve ties with Western nations that have lifted sanctions. Keen to reboot and rebuild after 14 years of devastating civil war, the new authorities in Damascus have hailed Washington’s lifting of US sanctions.

The move was formalized Friday after being announced by President Donald Trump on a Gulf tour this month during which he shook hands with Syria’s jihadist-turned-interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa. Spokesman Noureddine Al-Baba said the interior ministry restructure included reforms and creating “a modern civil security institution that adopts transparency and respects international human rights standards”.

It includes setting up a citizens’ complaints department and incorporating the police and General Security agency into an Internal Security command, he told a press conference. A border security body for Syria’s land and sea frontiers will be tasked

with “combating illegal activities, particularly drug and human smuggling networks”, Baba said.

The restructure includes “strengthening the role of the anti-drug department and further developing its importance within Syria and abroad” after the country became a major exporter of illicit stimulant captagon, he added. Another department will handle security for government facilities and foreign missions, as embassies reopen in Syria following Bashar Al-Assad’s ouster in December. A tourism police body will secure visitors and sites as the war-torn country — home to renowned UNESCO World Heritage sites — seeks to relaunch tourism.

Syria’s 14-year civil war killed more than half a million people and ravaged its infrastructure. Baba said around a third of the population had been under suspicion by the Assad regime’s feared intelligence and security services. Baba told a press conference in Damascus that “the number of people wanted by the former regime for political reasons exceeds eight million”. “We are talking about around a third of the Syrian people who had records and were wanted by the repressive intelligence and security agencies of the former regime,” he said, adding that the ministry had been working to address the issue.

Syria’s foreign ministry welcomed Washington’s lifting of sanctions, calling the move “a positive step in the right direction to reduce humanitarian and economic struggles in the country”. Turkish foreign ministry spokesperson Oncu Keceli said the recent US and European Union steps to lift sanctions were “of critical importance in efforts to bring stability and security to Syria”. The European Union announced the lifting of its economic sanctions on Syria earlier this month.

Sharaa met President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday on his third visit to Turkey since taking power on a visit to discuss “common issues”, Syria’s presidency said. Ankara is a major backer of Syria’s new authorities, who are negotiating with Kurdish forces that control swathes of the northeast and that Turkey considers “terrorists”. “Our President told Sharaa ... that Turkey welcomed the lifting of sanctions,” Erdogan’s office said in a statement on X.

A government delegation made a first visit Saturday to the notorious Al-Hol camp in the northeast that hosts families of suspected Islamic State group militants. Trump said he wanted to give Syria’s new rulers “a chance at greatness” after their overthrow of Assad. US sanctions were first imposed on Syria in 1979 under the rule of Bashar Al-Assad’s father Hafez. They were sharply expanded after the bloody repression of anti-government protests in 2011 triggered Syria’s civil war.

The sanctions relief extends to the new government on condition that Syria not provide safe haven for terrorist organizations and ensure security for religious and ethnic minorities, the US Treasury Department said. Concurrently, the US State Department issued a 180-day waiver for the Caesar Act to make sure that sanctions do not obstruct foreign investment in Syria. The 2020 legislation severely sanctioned any entity or company cooperating with the now ousted government.

Palestinian sources said Friday the leaders of Palestinian factions close to Assad have left Syria under pressure from the new authorities, a key US demand for lifting sanctions. A Palestinian faction leader who left Syria after Assad’s December overthrow said on condition of anonymity that “most of the Palestinian factional leadership that received support from Tehran has left Damascus” to countries including Lebanon, while another still based there confirmed the development.

“The factions have fully handed over weapons in their headquarters or with their cadres” to the authorities, who also received “lists of names of faction members possessing individual weapons” and demanded that those arms be handed over, the first added. A third Palestinian faction source in Damascus said that after Assad’s overthrow, “we gathered our members’ weapons ourselves and handed them over, but we have kept individual light weapons for protection... with the (authorities’) authorization”.

In the Yarmouk Palestinian camp in the Damascus suburbs which was devastated during the war, factional banners usually at the entrance were gone and party buildings were closed and unguarded, AFP photographers said. Factional premises elsewhere in Damascus also appeared closed. Many Palestinians fled to Syria in 1948 following the creation of the Zionist entity, and from the mid-1960s Syria began hosting the leadership of Palestinian factions. – Agencies