The US flag was hoisted Thursday outside of the long-shuttered ambassador’s residence in Damascus, in a signing of growing ties between Washington and the new Syrian government.

Axar.az reports, citing AP, The US ambassador to Turkiye, Tom Barrack, who has also been appointed special envoy to Syria, arrived to inaugurate the residence.

Washington hasn’t formally reopened its embassy in Damascus, which closed in 2012 after protests against the government of then President Bashar al-Assad, met by a brutal crackdown, spiraled into civil war. Al-Assad was unseated in December in a lightning armed opposition offensive.

But Barrack’s visit and the raising of the flag were a significant signal of warming relations.