US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said on Tuesday that he will introduce legislation to impose sanctions on any group or government engaged in hostilities against the Kurds.
His bill, called the Save the Kurds Act, seeks to punish Turkey and Syrian President Ahmad Al Shara, whose forces this month clashed with Kurdish fighters who were until recently backed by the US.
In a post on X, Mr Graham, a political ally of President Donald Trump, said he was watching the situation in Syria with “great concern”.
“The Kurds are under threat from the new Syrian government that is aligned with Turkey. It would be a disaster for America’s reputation and national security interests to abandon the Kurds, who were the chief ally in destroying the ISIS caliphate,” he wrote.
In a separate post, he accused Saudi Arabia of “silence regarding the Syrian government’s constant assault on the Kurds”, and condemned Riyadh's strike against UAE counter-terrorism equipment in Yemen.
“I am smart enough to know that Saudi Arabia has influence on the Syrian government and I expect them to use it to keep the region from falling further into chaos,” he said.
Mr Graham's proposed legislation comes as concern mounts in Washington that the Trump administration moved too far, too fast in removing all sanctions on Syria.
Some US politicians had argued that the lifting of sanctions should be a phased reward for positive steps taken by Mr Al Shara and his 13-month-old government, which swept to power after removing Bashar Al Assad's regime.
But Mr Trump and Mr Al Shara said lifting all sanctions was required to encourage investment in Syria's economy.
In December, Washington ended sanctions that had been in place under the Caesar Act.
Their repeal requires a review of the situation in Syria every 180 days over the course of four years to ensure that Damascus is taking appropriate action in areas including fighting ISIS, removing foreign fighters from government roles, and upholding religious and ethnic minority rights.
If the US government finds that the Syrian government is off track in these goals, the bill stipulates that it can impose sanctions on people until Damascus changes course.
Last week, Mr Graham said that if Syrian government forces continue to advance in the north towards Raqqa, he would push for reimposing Caesar Act sanctions “on steroids”.
Damascus launched a swift offensive against SDF-held territory after months of stalled talks between the Kurdish-led group and the central government over integration into the Syrian state.
The SDF has controlled large parts of north-east Syria since the civil war – about 25 per cent of the country’s territory before the government advance – and ran it as a semi-autonomous region under the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria.
Damascus and the SDF are now in an uneasy truce.
Morhaf Ibrahim, president of the Alawites Association of the US, said the lifting of sanctions was never intended to be a “blank cheque” for Damascus.
“Multiple minority communities in Syria have been subjected to serious attacks, signalling that the country is moving not towards compliance but in the opposite direction,” he wrote in an opinion piece in The Washington Examiner.
Alawites underpinned the Assad regime and Mr Al Assad belongs to the sect. Since he fled to Russia in 2024, Alawites have been a target for violence.
Meanwhile, Mr Trump on Tuesday said he had spoken with Mr Al Shara about the situation in Syria.
"Had a great conversation with the highly respected President of Syria, and all of the things having to do with Syria and that area is working out very, very well,” he told reporters outside the White House. "So, we're very happy about it.”
According to a statement from the Syrian presidency, the two leaders discussed reconstruction work, emphasised the importance of preserving Syria’s territorial integrity and reaffirmed their commitment to diplomacy to prevent a resurgence of terrorism.
