Several members of the United States Senate and Congress have urged President Joe Biden to prevent the international community from normalizing ties with Syria's brutal regime led by Bashar Assad.

The letter signed by representatives Gregory Meeks and Michael McCaul and senators Bob Menendez and Jim Risch also demanded the Biden administration provide briefings on its Syria policy. The lawmakers said that reports of Washington's allies in the Middle East continuing to renegotiate relationships with Assad without any significant U.S. opposition are troubling.

"We are concerned that a number of our Arab partners continue to increase their formal and informal relationships with the Assad regime, including the establishment of official diplomatic outposts and publicly released diplomatic overtures," the senators and congresspeople said, telling Biden that states who try to normalize ties with the Assad regime should be made aware of the consequences.

"Tacit approval of formal diplomatic engagement with the Syrian regime sets a dangerous precedent for authoritarians who seek to commit similar crimes against humanity," they asserted.

Following the Arab Spring protest movement in 2011, Syria was dragged into civil war. Assad has launched an offensive campaign against peaceful protesters, unleashing a wave of anger and criticism from the international community. The county was expelled from the 22-nation Arab League over its failure to end the bloodshed caused by brutal government crackdowns on pro-democracy protests. Some 500,000 people were killed and millions were displaced.

After years of international isolation, the Assad regime has begun the process of returning to the regional arena in recent months. Syria has been handed the right to host the Arab Energy Conference in 2024, which brings all the members of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) under one roof in the Syrian capital of Damascus.

Direct contact between leaders of Arab states and Assad in recent months also stirred concerns among U.S. officials and the international community. Jordan's King Abdullah II held a phone call with Assad, while the United Arab Emirates' (UAE) Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan visited Damascus last November. The Syrian regime was also invited to take part in Dubai’s Expo 2020, the first world fair in the Middle East.

In October last year, Jordan opened its border crossing with Syria, a key Middle East trade route and export gateway for Damascus, after three years. The resumption of commercial trade through the crossing was as much a diplomatic victory as an economic win for Assad, whose regime was isolated from its Arab neighbors.

Earlier, the U.S. ruled out the possibility of normalizing relations with Assad or lifting sanctions imposed on Damascus until progress in the political process was made in the war-torn country.

"What we’ve not done and we do not intend to do is to express any support for efforts to normalize relations or rehabilitate Mr. Assad or lift a single sanction on Syria or change our positions to oppose the reconstruction of Syria," U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in Washington when asked whether the U.S. endorsed the fact that some Arab countries were resuming normal relations with Assad’s regime. He said this policy will not change "until there is irreversible progress toward a political solution, which we believe is necessary and vital."

A U.S. law known as the Caesar Act came into force last year that punishes any companies that work with Assad as he seeks to rebuild after a decade of war. The act, accompanied by a slew of U.S. sanctions on Syrians close to Assad, aims to force accountability for human rights abuses and encourage a political solution in Syria.

Despite the statement, the Biden administration has been accused of soft rhetoric against Assad and his criminal regime, particularly toward the plan to distribute gas and electricity to Lebanon via Syria. Biden also took heat from Republican members of Congress in June 2021, after his administration removed sanctions on Assad-linked companies.

"Given Assad's horrific crimes against the Syrian people, the United States has long maintained that the international community cannot reintegrate the Syrian regime without meaningful reforms that demonstrate accountability and reflect the will of the Syrian people," U.S. lawmakers said in Tuesday's letter. "We urge your Administration to reinforce that position."