On Wednesday, Syria denied holding Austin Tice, a journalist from the United States who vanished ten years ago, or kidnapping him.
This comes just one week after President Joe Biden demanded that Damascus allow him to return home.
Issuing a statement on the 10th anniversary of Tice’s captivity, Biden said his administration had “repeatedly asked the government of Syria to work with us so that we can bring Austin home”.
Austin Tice, 31, a former U.S. Marine, was kidnapped in August 2012 while reporting freelance in Damascus on the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Although Tice’s captors’ identity is unknown, his family believes he is alive and still held in Syria.
Meanwhile, there has been no claim of responsibility for his abduction.
In response, the Syrian Foreign Ministry described Tice as a U.S. serviceman and denied the government was holding him or any other U.S. citizen.
“These are baseless allegations,” the statement said.