Lawmakers tackle Syria, Near East aid
A look at the Middle East issues Congress will be addressing next week.
Lawmakers will get straight to work castigating Bashar al-Assad and examining foreign aid to the Middle East when they return next week from their two-week recess.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee marks up two resolutions on April 30 aimed at undermining Assad as the uprising against his rule enters its fourth year. Neither is legally binding.
A resolution from panel chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif., and ranking member Eliot Engel, D-N.Y. — first obtained by Al-Monitor — calls on the Barack Obama administration to stop recognizing Assad as Syria’s rightful ruler and gives the State Department 60 days to give Congress a humanitarian aid strategy. The Senate passed a resolution earlier this month from Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., requesting an aid strategy within 90 days.
Royce’s committee is also slated to take action on a resolution from Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., chairman of the House Foreign Affairs panel on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations, urging the United States and the United Nations to establish a Syria war crimes tribunal.
