The man, who identifies himself as Travis Timmerman, says he walked from Lebanon into Syria on a religious pilgrimage months ago and was arrested by authorities during the administration of now-deposed President Bashar Assad.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken addressed the reports of an “American citizen who was found just today” in a brief interview with Sky News on Thursday.

“We’re working to bring him home — to bring him out of Syria and to bring him home,” Blinken said. “But for privacy reasons, I can’t share any more detail than that.”

“Travis Pete Timmerman” was reported missing by Hungarian authorities in August. A “Pete Timmerman” had been earlier reported missing by Missouri State Highway Patrol in May with his last known location in the Hungarian capital city of Budapest.

The Missouri missing person report contains a picture of a man similar in appearance to the released prisoner.

He is only one of many prisoners being liberated from Assad-era compounds as the terrorist group and revolutionary militia Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham takes control of the national government.

The man’s release initially sparked confusion as people mistook him for fellow U.S. citizen Austin Tice, a Marine veteran and journalist who was kidnapped in 2012 while traveling through Syria. The two bear a passing resemblance to each other as men with white complexions, beards, and brown hair.

But the prisoner quickly affirmed that he is not Tice and was unaware of the journalist until after his release.

Blinken told Sky News that there is no update on the whereabouts of Tice.

“No update on Austin Tice except to say that every single day we are working to find him and to bring him home — making sure the word is out to everyone that this is a priority for the United States,” the secretary of state said.

President Joe Biden said following the collapse of the Assad regime that U.S. officials believe Tice is alive and “think we can get him back, but we have no direct evidence of that yet.”