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US President Donald Trump vowed to “do everything we can to make Syria successful” following a first-of-its-kind White House meeting with Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa on Monday.
The Oval Office meeting was closed to the press, and al-Sharaa entered the building through West Executive Avenue, adjacent to the White House, rather than on the West Wing driveway normally used for foreign leaders’ arrivals.
He left the White House about two hours later and greeted a crowd of supporters gathered outside before getting into his motorcade.
After the meeting, Trump said of al-Sharaa that “I have confidence that he’ll be able to do the job”, later adding in a post on social media that he plans to meet and speak with the Syrian leader again.
Syria formally confirmed that it would join the global coalition against the Islamic State group during al-Sharaa’s visit, becoming its 90th member, according to a senior US administration official.
The US will also allow Syria to resume operations at its embassy in Washington so the two countries can better coordinate on counterterrorism, security and economic issues, the official said.
Syria’s foreign ministry, in a statement, described the meeting as “friendly and constructive” and said Trump “affirmed the readiness of the United States to provide the support that the Syrian leadership needs to ensure the success of the reconstruction and development process.”
Al-Sharaa, in an interview on Fox News, said he and Trump talked about investment opportunities in Syria in the future, “so that Syria is no longer looked at as a security threat. It is now looked at as a geopolitical ally. And it’s a place where the United States can have great investments, especially extracting gas.”
Al-Sharaa wants a permanent repeal of sanctions
Al-Sharaa’s visit was the first to the White House by a Syrian head of state since the Middle Eastern country gained independence from France in 1946.
It comes after the US lifted sanctions imposed on Syria during the decades the country was ruled by the Assad family.
Al-Sharaa led the rebel forces that toppled Syrian President Bashar Assad last December and was named the country’s interim leader in January. He once had ties to al-Qaeda and had a $10 million US bounty on his head.
Before al-Sharaa’s arrival in the US, the United Nations Security Council voted to lift sanctions on the Syrian president and other government officials in a move that the US ambassador to the UN, Mike Waltz, said was a strong sign that Syria is in a new era since the fall of Assad.
Al-Sharaa came to the meeting with his own priorities. He wants a permanent repeal of sanctions that punished Syria for widespread allegations of human rights abuses by Assad’s government and security forces. While the Caesar Act sanctions are currently waived by Trump, a permanent repeal would require Congress to act.
One option is a proposal from Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, that would end the sanctions without any conditions. The other was drafted by Senator Lindsey Graham, a hawkish Trump ally who wants to set conditions for a sanctions repeal that would be reviewed every six months.
But advocates argue that any repeal with conditions would prevent companies from investing in Syria because they would fear potentially being sanctioned. Mouaz Moustafa, executive director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, likened it to a “hanging shadow that paralyses any initiatives for our country.”
The Treasury Department said Monday that the Caesar Act waiver was extended for another 180 days.
Additional sources • AP