RIYADH – President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he will ease sanctions on Syria and move to normalize relations with its new government to give the country “a chance at peace.”
Trump made the announcement shortly before he was set to meet Wednesday in Saudi Arabia with Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa, the onetime insurgent who last year led the overthrow of longtime leader Bashar Assad. Trump 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.”
The developments were a major boost for the Syrian president, who had been imprisoned in Iraq for his role in the insurgency following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of the Arab country. Al-Sharaa was named president of Syria in January, a month after a stunning offensive by insurgent groups led by al-Sharaa’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, that stormed Damascus, ending the 54-year rule of the Assad family.
The U.S. has been weighing how to handle al-Sharaa since he took power in December. Gulf leaders have rallied behind the new government in Damascus and want Trump to follow, believing it is a bulwark against Iran’s return to influence in Syria, where it had helped prop up Assad’s government during a decadelong civil war.
Then-President Joe Biden left the decision to Trump, whose administration has yet to formally recognize the new Syrian government. Sanctions imposed on Damascus under Assad also remain in place.
Before Trump spoke, the White House said he had “agreed to say hello” to the Syrian president while in Saudi Arabia.
The comments marked a striking change in tone from Trump and put him at odds with longtime U.S. ally Israel, which has been deeply skeptical of al-Sharaa’s extremist past and cautioned against swift recognition of the new government.
Formerly known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani, al-Sharaa joined the ranks of al-Qaida insurgents battling U.S. forces in Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion and still faces a warrant for his arrest on terrorism charges in Iraq. The U.S. once offered $10 million for information about his whereabouts because of his links to al-Qaida.
Al-Sharaa came back to his home country after the conflict began in 2011 and led al-Qaida’s branch that used to be known as the Nusra Front. He later changed the name of his group to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and cut links with al-Qaida.
He is set to become the first Syrian leader to meet an American president since Hafez Assad met Bill Clinton in Geneva in 2000.
Syria has historically had fraught relations with Washington since the days of the Cold War, when Damascus had close links with the Soviet Union and later when Syria became Iran’s closest ally in the Arab world. The removal of the Assad family could change the track.
Ibrahim Hamidi, a London-based Syrian analyst, said Trump’s planned meeting with al-Sharaa marks a “strategic shift” for the country.
“The Syrian-American meetings in Riyadh open the gate for the two sides to start discussing issues of disagreement between them in a positive atmosphere,” said Hamidi, editor-in-chief of the Arab magazine Al Majalla. “This is important.”
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