Trump hosts Syrian Sharaa in a meeting that is the first of its kind in the White House

Washington (AFP) – US President Donald Trump received Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa at the White House on Monday, and welcomed the once-pariah country to join a US-led global coalition to fight ISIS.

It is the first visit by a Syrian head of state to the White House since the Middle Eastern country gained independence from France in 1946, and comes after the United States lifted sanctions imposed on Syria during the decades it was ruled by the Assad family. Al-Sharaa led the opposition forces that overthrew Syrian President Bashar al-Assad last December, and was appointed interim president of the country in January.

Trump and Sharaa – who has ties to Al Qaeda and the US has a $10 million bounty on his head – met for the first time in May in Saudi Arabia. At the time, the US president described Shara as “young and attractive. A strong man. A strong past, a very strong past. A fighter.” This was the first official meeting between the United States and Syria since 2000, when then-President Bill Clinton met with Hafez al-Assad, Bashar al-Assad’s father.

White House press secretary Carolyn Leavitt said Monday’s visit is “part of the president’s diplomatic efforts to meet with anyone around the world seeking peace.”

Trump, a Republican, recently said that Shara is “doing a very good job so far” and that “a lot of progress has been made with Syria” since the United States eased sanctions.

One official familiar with the administration’s plans said Syria’s entry into the global coalition fighting ISIS would allow it to work more closely with U.S. forces, even though the new Syrian army and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in the country’s northeast were already fighting the group.

Before Sharaa arrived in the United States, 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 United Nations, Mike Waltz, described as a strong signal that Syria is living in a new era since the fall of Assad.

Sharia enters the meeting with its priorities. He wants the permanent repeal of sanctions that have punished Syria over widespread allegations of human rights violations by Assad’s government and security forces. While Trump has currently waived the Caesar Act sanctions, 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, to end the sanctions without any conditions. The other was drafted by Senator Lindsey Graham, a hard-line Trump ally who wants to set conditions for repealing sanctions that will be reviewed every six months.

But advocates say any unconditional cancellation would prevent companies from investing in Syria because they fear they could be subject to sanctions. Moaz Mustafa, Executive Director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, likened it to “a hanging shadow that paralyzes any initiatives for our country.”

Associated Press writer Konstantin Torobin contributed to this report.