Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa arrived in the United States on Saturday for a historic official visit, his country’s state news agency reported.
The visit comes just a day after Washington removed him from its terrorism blacklist.
Sharaa, whose rebel forces overthrew longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad late last year, is due to meet with US President Donald Trump at the White House on Monday.
According to analysts, this is the first visit by a Syrian president to the United States since the country gained independence in 1946.
Read also | Who is Austin Tice, the American reporter missing in Syria since 2012?
The interim leader first met Trump in Riyadh during the US president’s regional tour in May.
Washington’s special envoy for Syria, Tom Barrack, said earlier this month that Sharaa would “hopefully” sign an agreement to join the US-led international alliance against the Islamic State (IS) group.
The United States plans to establish a military base near Damascus “to coordinate humanitarian aid and monitor developments between Syria and Israel,” a Syrian diplomatic source told AFP.
Friday’s decision by the State Department to remove Sharao from the blacklist was widely expected.
Read also | Islamic State is rising again in Syria, filling the void left by the US
Days before al-Sharaa’s visit, Trump told reporters he had decided to lift sanctions on Syria “to give them a fighting chance, and I think (al-Sharaa) is doing a very good job so far.”
“It’s a tough neighborhood and he’s a tough guy, but I got on very well with him and a lot of progress was made with Syria,” he said.
What’s on the agenda?
State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said the Sharaa government had met US demands, including working to find missing Americans and dispose of remaining chemical weapons.
“These actions are being taken in recognition of the progress the Syrian leadership has made following the departure of Bashar al-Assad and more than 50 years of repression under the Assad regime,” Pigott said.
The spokesman added that removing the US from the list would promote “regional security and stability as well as an inclusive Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political process.”
The Syrian Interior Ministry announced on Saturday that it had carried out 61 airstrikes and made 71 arrests as part of a “proactive campaign to neutralize the threat” of IS, according to the official SANA news agency.
Read also | Syrian leader visits Russia, likely to ask Russia to extradite AssadRead also | Did former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad “poison” Russia?
It said the airstrikes targeted places where IS cells remained dormant, including Aleppo, Idlib, Hama, Homs, Deir ez-Zor, Raqqa and Damascus.
After his arrival, Sharaa met with representatives of Syrian organizations in Washington, according to his country’s official media.
Syria’s foreign minister posted a video on social media taken before Shara’s departure of him playing basketball with CENTCOM commander Brad Cooper and Kevin Lambert, the head of international operations against IS in Iraq, along with the caption “work hard, play harder.”
Transformation
Shara’s visit to Washington follows his landmark visit to the United Nations in September, his first time on American soil. During that visit, the former jihadist became the first Syrian president in decades to address the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
On Thursday, Washington led a Security Council vote to lift UN sanctions against it.
Sharaa’s group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), formerly linked to al-Qaeda, was only removed from the US terror list in July.
Since taking power, the new Syrian leadership has sought to distance itself from its violent past and project a more moderate image to both ordinary Syrians and the international community.
The White House visit “is yet another testament to US commitment to the new Syria and a hugely symbolic moment for the country’s new leader, marking the next step in his stunning transformation from militant leader to global statesman,” International Crisis Group USA program director Michael Hanna said.
Read also | Who is Jihad Al-Shamie? Police have confirmed the identity of the Manchester synagogue attacker
Sharaa is expected to seek funding for Syria, which faces significant challenges in rebuilding after 13 years of civil war. In October, the World Bank put the “best conservative estimate” of the cost of rebuilding Syria at $216 billion.
Before Assad’s fall, al-Sharaa – then known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani – led Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an Islamic rebel group that controlled much of northwestern Syria. It used to be an offshoot of al-Qaeda, but later split from it. HTS and IS were rivals, and al-Sharaa cracked down on Islamic State cells in the area it controlled.
The main partner of the US in the fight against IS at that time was the Syrian Democratic Forces led by the Kurds in the northeast of the country.
Since al-Sharaa took power, the US military has expanded cooperation with Damascus, and Washington has pushed through an agreement to merge the SDF and the new Syrian army.
(With input from agencies)
(Tagtranslate)Syria
