Tom Barrack
@USAMBTurkiye · US administration & envoys
Tom Barrack is the US ambassador to Turkey and special presidential envoy for Syria and Iraq.
Honored to meet with President Erdogan today at Beştepe. As we mark America's 250th anniversary this year and look ahead to a century of diplomatic relations between Turkey and the United States: this alliance has never been stronger. Turkey and the U.S. share deep bonds — as NATO Allies, economic partners, and friends who have stood together through decades of shared history. Today's discussion reaffirmed our shared commitment to regional security, economic cooperation, and the enduring partnership between our two nations. 🇺🇸🇹🇷
Honored to welcome so many friends, partners, and colleagues of U.S. Embassy in Ankara as we celebrated America's 250th birthday. Our Independence Day celebration was more than a commemoration of our nation's history. It was a celebration of the enduring partnership between the United States and Türkiye, and of the people-to-people ties that continue to strengthen our Alliance. Thank you to everyone who joined us for this memorable celebration. 🇺🇸🇹🇷 #Freedom250
Met late into the night with Syrian Foreign Minister @AsaadHShaibani . In the hours when capitals grow quiet, the real work of statecraft continues. He is tireless, clear-eyed, and serious about lowering the temperature in a region that has little margin for miscalculation. Diplomacy is not theater. It is the patient alignment of interests before events turn against us. Grateful for the candor of the exchange, and for a counterpart who understands that restraint and dialogue are also forms of strength.
A warm welcome to Congressman Issa, a House member for two decades — including as Chairman of Oversight and Government Reform — and as a senior member of the Judiciary and Foreign Affairs Committees. We are honored to host a veteran, a bold and successful entrepreneur, and a legendary legislator who has an intimate understanding of this region and has made major contributions to U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East over the past two decades.
We are dismayed by the renewed escalation in Suwayda. Nearly a year ago, alongside Syrian Foreign Minister al-Shaibani and Jordanian Foreign Minister Safadi, we put our signatures to a trilateral roadmap for peace in Suwayda: a path to the dignified reintegration of the province into Syria, with the full rights and the full obligations of citizenship for its Druze community. That path remains the only one that leads anywhere but back to grief. Syria’s Druze are a people of noble and ancient history. Yet where governance is absent, gangs fill the void, and today a very few with toxic motives are turning on their own, men such as Atef Hunaidi, arbitrarily detained and driven from his home. Our team is in contact with Mr. Hunaidi and with others caught in this campaign of intracommunal violence. Cooperation among the Druze, the Arab tribes, and the neighboring nations along Suwayda’s borders must continue to be built in threads of tolerance and understanding: one nation and one people, of diverse and respected cultures and faiths, interacting through communal dialogue and empathy, and leaving the kinetic, knee-jerk reflex where it belongs, in the hands of the nation-state alone. The Syrian government has begun to confront the grave crimes committed by its forces last July and to hold those responsible to account before its courts. That is the direction of hope, and it must continue. The only way forward is a dialogue that delivers accountability, restores security, and opens the road for the displaced to return and for what was destroyed to be rebuilt. This is a sensitive hour, in the neighborhood and in the world. We urge upon all parties the two disciplines that peace has always asked of the brave: restraint in action, and communication in earnest. The alternative to talking is not victory. It is only the next round of mourning.
STATEMENT OF THE AMBASSADOR On the U.S. Treasury Designation of September 4, 2026 Today the United States Department of the Treasury designated a single Türkiye-based financial institution and two of its subsidiaries for their role in moving funds on behalf of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps–Qods Force. We want to place this measure in its proper context, because context is everything, and because the relationship between the United States and the Republic of Türkiye is far larger than any one institution or any one day. Throughout this process, Treasury and its Turkish counterparts have been in direct and continuous contact. The action is what a great power owes to the integrity of the international financial system. Washington’s maximum-pressure campaign against the Iranian regime depends upon closing, one by one, the channels through which Tehran launders the proceeds of its activities. This designation is aimed at the conduct of one entity, not at a nation, not at a banking system, and not at an ally. It is enforcement, precise and lawful, and the United States makes no apology for protecting the architecture on which honest commerce everywhere depends. It would be a serious error, here or in Ankara, to read this narrow measure as a judgment upon Türkiye. It is nothing of the kind. Türkiye’s own interest lies in a banking system that is clean, trusted, and beyond the reach of those who would abuse it, and no nation has a greater stake than Türkiye itself in ensuring that its institutions are not turned to purposes their own government would never sanction. The health of the Turkish financial system is not in question; the conduct of one institution was. For that reason we note with respect that Türkiye has moved as a sovereign partner should. Rather than treat an uncomfortable disclosure as an affront, the Turkish authorities have engaged to clarify the ambiguities surrounding this matter and to inaugurate a process that will strengthen transparency going forward. That is not the reflex of a state with something to conceal; it is the conduct of a mature partner determined that its own house be, and be seen to be, in order. Cooperation of this kind is worth more to the alliance than any assurance offered under pressure, because it is offered freely. Allies of long standing do not measure their friendship by the absence of difficulty. Between serious partners, friction is not the exception to the relationship but a recurring feature of it, and the test is never whether a difficult matter arises but whether it is met with candor and resolved with dignity. The stability of the region, and the security of the routes and commerce on which both our peoples rely, the United States and Türkiye stand on the same side, as they have through harder trials than this. We are confident, therefore, that this measure will in time be seen not as a strain upon the partnership but as an instance of its strength: an American action taken after great deliberation, a Turkish response to address with timely and proper investigation, and a shared commitment to transparency that leaves both our nations, and the alliance between them, stronger than before. We will continue this work together, in the same spirit of candor and common purpose that has carried the relationship this far.
Director Kash Patel is one of the great operative partners of this era: strategy at the White House, tactics with special-mission units, diplomacy that produces captures, and leadership of small teams in every theater that matters. His return as the ninth FBI Director was not a beginning, it was a man coming back to the hunt. He learned the courtroom as a Florida public defender, then prosecuted terrorists at Justice and served as DOJ liaison to JSOC. On the House Intelligence Committee he wrote the Nunes memo. At the NSC he ran counterterrorism — senior ISIS and al-Qaeda leaders off the board, Americans brought home. He served as Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence, overseeing all seventeen intelligence community agencies, and at Defense, he ran the Secretary’s shop. Back at the Bureau he put agents on violent crime and the homeland. Homicides down on the order of 20 percent. Arrests doubled. Gangs and Tren de Aragua smashed. Thousands of children found. Predators and traffickers taken. Fentanyl seized by the ton. Spies arrested. More Ten Most Wanted pulled in than in the prior four years combined. And he did what Washington said could not be done: in partnership with Ambassador David Perdue, made great strides in Beijing on fentanyl precursors and scam compounds. Joint work with China, the Gulf, Thailand, Cambodia, and others. With Türkiye — through Turkish authorities and his disciplined and empowered teams a $3.7 billion Medicare alleged fraud fugitive was taken on Turkish soil and flown home. Through that same Turkish cooperation, one of the most wanted terrorists, Mohammad Al-Saadi, was arrested and transferred into U.S. custody. Diplomacy as targeting. No sanctuary. That is Patel. Bespoke teams. Hard targets. New partners who finally showed up. America safer because he came back.
Productive meeting today with Türkiye’s Ambassador to the United States Sedat Önal. Grateful for Türkiye’s continued partnership as we work together to advance regional stability, security, and shared prosperity. https://t.co/0CdSksqphQ
Great meeting with Syrian Chargé d’Affaires Mohammad Qanatri — congratulations on a week of historic accomplishments for Syria. https://t.co/SBqwqVg94p
Absolutely historic. @POTUS’s ongoing Middle East Plan – A steadfast partner steps forward into a national framework, and a united Syria for all takes shape. @POTUS’s far-sighted leadership opened the path for the SDF’s orderly integration into Syrian state institutions—transforming past division into lasting partnership and restoring to the Syrian people the opportunity to shape their common future. Recognizing the Kurdish language in education and securing substantive roles for our valued partners Mazloum Abdi and Ilham Ahmed within the Syrian government pays due respect to their leadership, the sacrifices of our Kurdish partners, and the constructive contribution they have made to regional stability—turning yesterday’s separations into tomorrow’s shared purpose. This is what real integration looks like: not winners and losers, but former counterparts with differing points of view crafting a diplomatic solution to strengthen the sovereign nation of Syria. One army, one government, one state. 🇺🇸🇸🇾
Another historic milestone in @POTUS’s bold vision to give Syria a chance. Today, @SecRubio formally rescinded Syria’s designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism — another decisive step in Syria’s remarkable journey from isolation to partnership, and from a source of terrorism to a committed partner in the global fight against it. For too long, this designation was another wall separating the Syrian people from the investment, enterprise, and opportunity necessary to rebuild their nation. Today, another wall comes down. Capital can replace conflict, enterprise can replace isolation, and commerce can continue to triumph over chaos. This is not simply the removal of a designation. It is another foundation stone in a new U.S.–Syria relationship built on shared interests, mutual security, and shared prosperity — and another example of @POTUS’s “security first, prosperity next” vision becoming reality. Promises made. Promises kept. Syria has been given a chance — now the work is to turn that chance into enduring peace and prosperity. https://t.co/rdMfrTEMbO
We are deeply concerned that the confirmed Israeli airstrikes on Abu al-Duhur Airbase constitute an unnecessary escalation that does not advance regional stability. The Al-Sharra government has neither adopted a predatory posture nor maintained proxy forces. It has, in fact, repeatedly indicated a preference for de-escalation with Israel. The United States has in the past, and will continue in the future, to host discussions to encourage diplomatic cadence over kinetic frustration for both nations. Enduring deescalation agreements are built through sustained dialogues with all concerned nations and principals. The United States continues to believe that restraint and engagement offer the more constructive course. We encourage all parties to prioritize logical discourse over further military incidents.
Connected stories
- U.S. Sanctions Turkish Bank Over Tens of Millions in IRGC-QF Transactions
- U.S. Rescinds Syria’s State Sponsor of Terrorism Designation
- Four Airstrikes Hit Runway of Syria's Abu al-Duhur Air Base, First Since Assad's Fall
- U.S. Envoy Calls Israeli Strikes on Syria's Abu al-Duhur an Unnecessary Escalation