US President Donald Trump said Tuesday he will move to normalize relations and lift sanctions on Syria’s new government to give the country “a chance at peace.”
Trump is set to meet Wednesday in Saudi Arabia with Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa, the onetime insurgent who last year led the overthrow of former leader Bashar al-Assad. He said the effort at rapprochement came at the urging of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi de facto ruler, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
“There is a new government that will hopefully succeed,” Trump said of Syria, adding, “I say good luck, Syria. Show us something special.”
Syria’s Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani said Tuesday that Trump’s decision to lift sanctions was a “pivotal turning point for the Syrian people, as we move toward a future of stability, self-sufficiency and genuine reconstruction after years of destructive war.”
Sharaa will be the first Syrian leader to meet an American president since the late Hafez al-Assad met Bill Clinton in Geneva in 2000.
It was a major boost for the Syrian president, who at one point was imprisoned in Iraq for his role in the insurgency following the 2003 US-led invasion of the Arab country. Sharaa was named president of Syria in January, a month after a stunning offensive by insurgent groups led by Sharaa’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, stormed Damascus, ending the 54-year rule of the Assad family.
According to the London Times, citing unnamed security sources, Sharaa may use the meeting to offer talks on normalizing relations with Israel under the Abraham Accords.
A US security source confirmed the possibility of Damascus joining the accords, with the United Arab Emirates as a mediator. Sharaa confirmed last week that Abu Dhabi is already acting as an intermediary between Israel and Syria, with talks focusing on security and intelligence matters and confidence-building between the two countries, which have no official relations.
The source added that Washington and Gulf countries are seeking to pull Syria away from Iranian influence. Tehran, sworn to Israel’s destruction, propped up the former Assad regime throughout the bloody Syrian civil war.
The US has been weighing how to handle Sharaa since he took power in December. Gulf leaders have rallied behind the new government in Damascus and will want Trump to follow, believing it is a bulwark against Iran’s return to influence in Syria.
Then-president Joe Biden left the decision to Trump, whose administration has yet to formally recognize the new Syrian government.
“The president agreed to say hello to the Syrian President while in Saudi Arabia tomorrow,” the White House said before Trump’s remarks.
The comments marked a striking change in tone from Trump and put him at odds with Israel, which has been deeply skeptical of Sharaa’s extremist past and cautioned against swift recognition of the new government.
Formerly known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani, Sharaa joined the ranks of al-Qaida insurgents battling US forces in Iraq after the US-led invasion in 2003. He still faces a warrant for his arrest on terrorism charges in Iraq, and the US once offered $10 million for information about his whereabouts because of his links to al-Qaida.
In 2011, Sharaa came back to his home country, where he led the branch of al-Qaida’s that was known as the Nusra Front. He later changed the name of his group to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and cut links with al-Qaida.
Syria has had fraught relations with Washington since the days of the Cold War, when Damascus maintained close links with the Soviet Union and later became Iran’s closest ally in the Arab world.
London-based Syrian analyst Ibrahim Hamidi said Trump’s meeting with Sharaa marks a “strategic shift” in the country, with Iran forced to leave and Russia, which also backed Assad and now gives him sanctuary, weakened.
“The Syrian-American meetings in Riyadh open the gate for the two sides to start discussing disagreements and issues between them with an atmosphere of dialogue,” said Hamidi, editor-in-chief of the Arabic magazine Al Majalla. “This is important.”