Amendment to the Syria-Related Sanctions Regulations

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY <SUBAGY>Office of Foreign Assets Control</SUBAGY> <CFR>31 CFR Part 569</CFR> <SUBJECT>Amendment to the Syria-Related Sanctions Regulations</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Office of Foreign Assets Control, Treasury. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is changing the heading of the Syria-Related Sanctions Regulations to the Promoting Accountability for Assad and Regional Stabilization Sanctions Regulations and amending the renamed regulations to implement a January 15, 2025 Syria-related Executive order and a June 30, 2025 Syria-related Executive order. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective September 25, 2025. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> OFAC: Assistant Director for Regulatory Affairs, 202-622-4855; or <E T="03">https://ofac.treasury.gov/contact-ofac.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Electronic Availability</HD> This document and additional information concerning OFAC are available on OFAC's website: <E T="03">https://ofac.treasury.gov.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> On June 5, 2020, OFAC issued the Syria-Related Sanctions Regulations, 31 CFR part 569 (85 FR 34510, June 5, 2020) (the “Regulations”), to implement Executive Order (E.O.) 13894 of October 14, 2019, “Blocking Property and Suspending Entry of Certain Persons Contributing to the Situation in Syria” (84 FR 55851, October 17, 2019), pursuant to authorities delegated to the Secretary of the Treasury in E.O. 13894. In E.O. 13894, the President determined that the situation in and in relation to Syria, and in particular certain actions by the Government of Türkiye to conduct a military offensive in northeast Syria, undermined the campaign to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (“ISIS”), endangered civilians, and further threatened to undermine the peace, security, and stability in the region, and thereby constituted an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States, and declared a national emergency to deal with that threat. On January 15, 2025, the President, invoking the authority of, <E T="03">inter alia,</E> the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) (IEEPA), issued E.O. 14142 of January 15, 2025, “Taking Additional Steps with Respect to the Situation in Syria” (90 FR 6709, January 17, 2025). In E.O. 14142, the President amended E.O. 13894 to account for changing circumstances on the ground in Syria by removing references to the Government of Türkiye or the Turkish economy. On June 30, 2025, the President issued E.O. 14312 of June 30, 2025, “Providing for the Revocation of Syria Sanctions” (90 FR 29395, July 3, 2025) to, among other objectives, remove sanctions on Syria without providing relief to ISIS or other terrorist organizations, human rights abusers, those linked to chemical weapons or proliferation-related activities, or other persons that threaten the peace, security, or stability of the United States, Syria, and its neighbors. In E.O. 14312, the President found that the circumstances that gave rise to the actions taken in the Executive orders imposing sanctions on Syria pursuant to the national emergency declared in E.O. 13338, related to the policies and actions of the former regime of Bashar al-Assad, had been transformed by developments over the six months preceding June 30, 2025, including the positive actions taken by the new Syrian government under President Ahmed al-Sharaa, and terminated, effective July 1, 2025, the national emergency underpinning the Syrian Sanctions Regulations, 31 CFR part 542 (70 FR 17201, April 5, 2005). As a result, OFAC removed the Syrian Sanctions Regulations from the Code of Federal Regulations on August 26, 2025. Section 4(a) of E.O. 14312 expands the scope of the national emergency declared in E.O. 13894, as amended in and relied on for additional steps taken in E.O. 14142, and further amends E.O. 13894 (“E.O. 13894, as further amended”) to address the threat posed by, and to maintain sanctions against, perpetrators of war crimes and human rights violations and abuses, and the proliferation of narcotics trafficking networks in and in relation to Syria during the former regime of Bashar al-Assad and by those associated with it. Accordingly, certain persons previously sanctioned under E.O.s that were revoked by E.O. 14312 have been redesignated under E.O. 13894, as further amended. These persons are therefore subject to sanctions pursuant to the Regulations. Section 4(b) of E.O. 14312 also amends E.O. 13606 of April 22, 2012, “Blocking the Property and Suspending Entry into the United States of Certain Persons With Respect to Grave Human Rights Abuses by the Governments of Iran and Syria Via Information Technology” (77 FR 24571, April 24, 2012), to remove reference to the national emergency declared in E.O. 13338 of May 11, 2004, “Blocking Property of Certain Persons and Prohibiting the Export of Certain Goods to Syria” (69 FR 26751, May 13, 2004) and instead invoke the national emergency declared in E.O. 13894, as further amended. As a result, certain persons designated in relation to Syria under E.O. 13606 are also subject to sanctions pursuant to the Regulations. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Current Regulatory Action</HD> OFAC is now amending the Regulations to implement provisions of E.O. 13894, as further amended. OFAC is amending the Regulations to add E.O. 14142, E.O. 14312, and E.O. 13606 to the authorities citation. Additionally, OFAC is amending the authorities section by adding the following statutes: the Syria Human Rights Accountability Act of 2012 (22 U.S.C 8791 <E T="03">et seq.,</E> Pub. L. 112-158, Title VII, sec. 705, 126 Stat. 1268); Section 234 of the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (22 U.S.C. 9528(a)); the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act of 2019 (22 U.S.C. 8791 note, Pub. L. 116-92, Div. F, Title LXXIV, 133 Stat. 2290); and the Illicit Captagon Trafficking Suppression Act of 2023 (50 U.S.C. 1701 note, Pub. L. 118-50, div. P, 138 Stat. 992). These statutes will be fully integrated into a more comprehensive set of regulations at a future date. Furthermore, OFAC is renaming the Syria-Related Sanctions Regulations as the Promoting Accountability for Assad and Regional Stabilization Sanctions Regulations to reflect the expanded scope of the national emergency set forth in E.O. 13894, as further amended. In addition to renaming the Regulations, OFAC is modifying the program tag used to identify the names of persons added to OFAC's Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List (SDN List) pursuant to E.O. 13894, or pursuant to any further Executive orders issued pursuant to the national emergency declared in E.O. 13894, including those persons redesignated under E.O. 13894, as further amended. OFAC is also adding new program tags to identify the names of persons added to the SDN List pursuant to E.O. 13606 and certain other statutory authorities. Finally, OFAC is updating appendix A to provide the regulated public the text of E.O. 13894, as further amended. The Regulations remain in abbreviated form at this time for the purpose of providing immediate guidance to the public. OFAC intends to supplement this part 569 with a more comprehensive set of regulations, which may include additional interpretive guidance and definitions, general licenses, and other regulatory provisions. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Public Participation</HD> Because the Regulations involve a foreign affairs function, the provisions of E.O. 12866 of September 30, 1993, “Regulatory Planning and Review” (58 FR 51735, October 4, 1993), as amended, and the Administrative Procedure Act (5 U.S.C. 553) requiring notice of proposed rulemaking, opportunity for public participation, and delay in effective date, as well as the provisions of E.O. 14192 of January 31, 2025, “Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation” (90 FR 6065, February 6, 2025) and E.O. 14219 of February 19, 2025, “Ensuring Lawful Governance and Implementing the President's `Department of Government Efficiency' Deregulatory Initiative” (90 FR 10583, February 25, 2025) are inapplicable. Because no notice of proposed rulemaking is required for this rule, the Regulatory Flexibility Act (5 U.S.C. 601-612) does not apply. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Executive Order 14294</HD> Section 5 of E.O. 14294 of May 9, 2025, “Fighting Overcriminalization in Federal Regulations” (90 FR 20367, May 14, 2025) directs that all future notices of proposed rulemaking (NPRMs) and final rules published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> , the violation of which may constitute criminal regulatory offenses, should include a statement identifying that the rule or proposed rule is a criminal regulatory offense and the authorizing statute. E.O. 14294 directs agencies to draft this statement in consultation with the Department of Justice. E.O. 14294 further directs that the regulatory text of all NPRMs and final rules with criminal consequences published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> after May 9, 2025 should explicitly state a mens rea requirement for each element of a criminal regulatory offense, accompanied by citations to the relevant provisions of the authorizing statute. Willful violations of the regulations set forth in this final rule may be subject to criminal penalties pursuant to 50 U.S.C. 1705 and regulations promulgated thereunder. The statutory authority for criminal liability requires a <E T="03">mens rea</E> of willfulness as an element pursuant to 50 U.S.C. 1705(c). In drafting this statement, OFAC has consulted with the Department of Justice. <HD SO ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 36k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━