State Department spokesman Ned Price says there is "no higher priority than the safety and security of American citizens who are detained around the world."

This as President Joe Biden is meeting with the Parents of Austin Tice.

Tice, who's work had been published by The Washington Post, disappeared in August of 2012 at a checkpoint in a contested area west of Damascus.

A video released weeks later showed him blindfolded and held by armed men. He has not been heard from since and Syria has never acknowledged holding him.

In the final months of the Trump administration, two U.S. officials - including the government's top hostage negotiator, Roger Carstens - made a secret visit to Damascus to seek information on Tice and other Americans who have disappeared in Syria.

It was the highest-level talk in years between the U.S. and the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad, though Syrian officials offered no meaningful information on Tice