WASHINGTON, December 20. /TASS/. United States Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf will pay a visit to Damascus soon, the Axios portal reported on Thursday citing two unnamed US officials.

The reports provides no further details of the visit.

The US Department of State has not yet replied to a TASS request for a comment.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Bloomberg TV on December 19 that the United States was looking at the possibility of ‘getting people on the ground in Syria,’ because it is important "to have direct communication" with the country’s new rulers. The option will be weighed in the coming days, he added.

Earlier, NBC television reported citing high-ranking US officials that Washington was examining the possibility of removing its terrorist designation for the Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham armed group (HTS, outlawed in Russia), which has seized power in Syria. This implies that he US will cancel its reward of $10 million for information on the group’s leader Ahmad al-Sharaa.

On November 27, members of armed opposition groups launched a large-scale offensive against government forces' positions in Aleppo and Idlib governorates. By the evening of December 7, opponents of Syrian President Bashar Assad had captured several major cities: Aleppo, Hama, Deir ez-Zor, Deraa, and Homs. They entered Damascus on December 8, after which Syrian army units withdrew from the city. Assad resigned as president of Syria and fled the country, instructing for the peaceful transfer of power.