Syria has come off the State Sponsor of Terrorism list after forty six years, and the licence written around the group now running the country has been revoked as unnecessary

Syria was designated a State Sponsor of Terrorism on 29 December 1979. It came off the list on Monday.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he had authorised the formal rescission following the conclusion of the mandatory 45 day congressional notification period, and that he had also delisted Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, previously the al-Nusrah Front, as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist organisation. The Office of Foreign Assets Control removed the group from the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List the same day.

What the designation carried

With the rescission, Syria is no longer subject to the prohibitions of the Terrorism List Governments Sanctions Regulations at 31 CFR part 596, or to 22 U.S.C. 7205(a)(1). Rubio's statement puts the intended effect in one sentence, saying the two rescissions eliminate what he calls the final major barriers for private sector investment in Syria.

A licence with nothing left to authorise

OFAC revoked Syria General License 25, which had authorised transactions that could otherwise have been prohibited because of the role of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in the Syrian government. Once the group is off the blocked persons list, that authorisation has no work left to do. Three frequently asked questions were updated and a fourth was removed.

The list itself had not caught up

Rubio's statement credits the change to steps taken by the Syrian government under President Ahmed al-Sharaa, and names the country formally joining the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS in November among them.

The State Department's own State Sponsors of Terrorism page still carried Syria on Monday afternoon, with the December 1979 designation date beside it, alongside Cuba, North Korea and Iran.