There is a report that the Biden administration has renewed direct talks with Syria on the fate of American freelance journalist Austin Tice and other Americans who disappeared covering the country’s civil war. Austin disappeared in 2012. Officials say that U.S. negotiators have met with Syrian government officials, building momentum in efforts to help Austin. There has not been a breakthrough yet but Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is slowly breaking out of a decade of international isolation caused by his deadly response to the civil war.

There remains hope that Austin Tice is alive and in Syria, even after all these years. Past presidents have maintained that there was some indication that he was alive but there never seemed to be any headway made to bring him home. On the tenth anniversary of his disappearance last August, Joe Biden issued a statement letting Austin’s parents and the American people know that he was making Austin’s return a priority. McClatchy Newspapers and CNN reported at the time that the United States was in direct talks with Syria. The Assad regime, however, denied that.

Austin Tice is a Marine veteran and a freelance journalist. He was covering the early years of the Syrian civil war. There are at least five other missing Americans in Syria.

In November, the officials said, U.S. officials asked Oman to accelerate its mediation efforts with Syria. Soon thereafter, they said, U.S. officials held talks with Syrian intelligence and political leaders in Oman to discuss a variety of issues, including Mr. Tice and at least five other missing Americans who are believed to have been detained by the Assad regime.

The others include Majd Kamalmaz, a Syrian-American therapist who disappeared after being stopped one night in 2017 at a government checkpoint in Damascus while visiting family. The Kamalmaz family declined to comment on the latest talks.

Biden raised the subject of working on locating Austin and bringing him home last weekend during the White House Correspondents Association dinner. There was a concentration on Americans being held hostage overseas, including journalists Austin Tice and Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich who is in prison in Russia. Austin’s mother, Debra Tice was a guest at the dinner. She also attended the dinner last year. She and Austin’s father refuse to give up. She is doing a good job keeping pressure on the administration to bring her son home, as well as other Americans.

Let’s just say that Mrs. Tice is not particularly impressed with Biden’s efforts or effectiveness so far.

“We are not giving up,” Mr. Biden told Ms. Tice and the audience. “We are not ceasing our effort to get him, find him, and bring him home.”

Ms. Tice has repeatedly expressed frustration with U.S. efforts and urged Mr. Biden after the dinner to do more to bring her son home.

“We can engage with Syria,” she said Tuesday during an event in Washington at the National Press Club. “We can have a discussion. We can negotiate.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken says that the United States is pursuing channels in efforts to bring Austin home, including some that the administration cannot speak with the Tice family about. Blinken gave some encouraging words during an interview recently. And the White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre did not offer any information. We’ll have to wait and see if Blinken’s words come true. He may soon find himself tied up in a scandal of his own making during the presidential election in 2020. (Jazz suggests impeaching Blinken. Subscription required. Blinken is as slimy of a Swamp creature as his boss Joe Biden is.

“We are extensively engaged with regard to Austin—engaged with Syria, engaged with third countries—seeking to find a way to get him home,” he said during an interview at a Washington Post World Press Freedom Day event. “And we’re not going to relent until we do.”

Asked Wednesday about the renewed talks with Syria, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to confirm any negotiations.

“The U.S. government is doing everything it can through our diplomacy and foreign assistance to support journalists, keep them safe, and hold accountable the autocrats and their enablers who continue to repress a free and independent media,” she said.

Assad is being told by advisers to take the talks with the United States more seriously. They say it can lead to Syria being less isolated in the world. Assad is holding out for an easing of sanctions against his country. Sanctions usually are the stumbling block in negotiations, as past talks have shown to be true.

Ms. Tice said the U.S. didn’t have to change its own policy toward Syria to bring her son home. “I think it’s time to say the conflict in Syria is over and it is time for rapprochement,” she said at the National Press Club.

Previous U.S. efforts to bring Mr. Tice home have hit repeated roadblocks. In 2020, two top Trump administration officials secretly met with Syria’s top intelligence chief for talks on the missing Americans. The trip was led by Kash Patel, a deputy assistant to President Trump, and Amb. Roger Carstens, the administration’s point man on hostage negotiations, marking the first time in a decade that a White House official traveled to Damascus.

Those talks bogged down over the Assad regime’s efforts to tie the fate of the missing Americans to an agreement from then-President Donald Trump to withdraw all American forces from Syria, where about 900 U.S. military personnel primarily carry out limited missions targeting small pockets of Islamic State militants. The discussions also failed because Damascus wanted to tie the issue to sanctions relief.

Let’s hope that Austin Tice is alive and hanging on in Syria. Maybe this time will be the time the United States can bring him home.