Trump hosts Syria’s al-Sharaa for a first-of-its-kind meeting at the White House

WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump is hosting Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa at the White House on Monday, welcoming the once-pariah state into a U.S-led global coalition to fight the Islamic State group.

Al-Sharaa arrived at the White House a little after 11:30 a.m. and began his Oval Office meeting shortly after. The meeting is closed to the press, and the Syrian president entered the building through West Executive Avenue, adjacent to the White House, rather than on the West Wing driveway used for other foreign leaders’ arrivals.

It’s the first visit to the White House by a Syrian head of state since the Middle Eastern country gained independence from France in 1946 and comes after the U.S. 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.

Trump and al-Sharaa – who once had ties to al-Qaida and had a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head – first met in May in Saudi Arabia. At the time, the U.S. president described al-Sharaa as a “young, attractive guy. Tough guy. Strong past, very strong past. Fighter.” It was the first official encounter between the U.S. and Syria since 2000, when then-President Bill Clinton met with Hafez Assad, the father of Bashar Assad.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday’s visit is “part of the president’s efforts in diplomacy to meet with anyone around the world in the pursuit of peace.”

Trump, a Republican, has recently said that al-Sharaa is “doing a very good job so far” and that a “lot of progress has been made with Syria” since the U.S. eased sanctions.

One official with knowledge of the administration’s plans said Syria’s entry into the global coalition fighting the Islamic State group will allow it to work more closely with U.S. forces, although the new Syrian military and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in the country’s northeast had already been fighting the group.

Before al-Sharaa’s arrival in the U.S., the United Nations Security Council voted to lift sanctions on the Syrian president and other government officials in a move that the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Mike Waltz, said was a strong sign that Syria is in a new era since the fall of Assad.

Al-Sharaa comes into 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 Sen. 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 Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., 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 paralyzes any initiatives for our country.”

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Associated Press writer Konstantin Toropin contributed to this report.