President Donald Trump and Prince Prince Saudi Mohammed Bin Salman Poss for a photo in the Saudi-US Investment Forum at the King Abdulaziz International Conference Center in Riad, Saudi Arabia, Tuesday, May 13, 2025. Photo credit: Alex Brandon/Ap
President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he will move to normalize relations and raise the sanctions to the new Government of Syria to give the country “a peace opportunity.” Trump would meet Wednesday in Saudi Arabia with Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa, the insurgent that last year directed the overthrow of former leader Bashar Assad.
He said the approach effort occurred at the request of the heir prince Mohammed Bin Salman, the de facto Saudi ruler and the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
“There is a new government that hopefully will succeed,” Trump said about Syria, adding: “I say good luck, Syria. Show us something special.” The developments were a great impulse for the Syrian president who at one time was imprisoned in Iraq for his role in the insurgency after the 2003 invasion led by the United States of the Arab country.
Al-Sharaa was appointed president of Syria in January, a month after an impressive offensive by insurgent groups led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham or HTS of Al-Sharaa who assaulted Damascus the 54-year rule of the Assad family.
The United States has weighed how to drive Al-Sharaa since Tok Power in December. Gulf leaders have recovered behind the new government in Damascus and will do so, because Trump will continue, believing that he is a bulwark against Iran’s return to the influence in Syria, where he had helped underpin the duration of the Assad’s government a civil decade.
The then President Joe Biden left the decision to Trump, whose administration has not yet formally recognized the new Syrian government. The sanctions imposed on Damascus under Assad also remain in place.
“The president agreed to greet the Syrian president while in Saudi Arabia tomorrow,” said the White House before Trump’s comments.
The comments marked a surprising change in Trump’s tone, which until now had been deeply skeptical with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa.
Previously known by Guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani’s Nom, Al-Sharaa joined the ranks of Al-Qaeda insurgents who fight against US forces in Iraq after the invasion led by the United States in 2003 and still faces an order for his trial on terrorism charges.
Al-Sharaa, to whom the United States once sacrificed USD 10 million for information about its whereabouts because or its links with Al-Qaeda, he returned to his country of origin after the conflict in 2011, where he directed the branch of Al Qaidra he used to know.
Later he changed the name of his group A Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and reduced the links to Al-Qaida.
Al-Sharaa will become the first Syrian leader to meet an American president from the late Hafez Assad with Bill Clinton in Geneva in 2000.
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Posted on May 13, 2025
