Syria’s new leader makes his first visit to the United Arab Emirates

BEIRUT (AP) - Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa made his first visit Sunday to the United Arab Emirates, whose leaders have been circumspect about the new leadership in Damascus in the four months since the fall of former President Bashar Assad in a lightning rebel offensive.

The state-run Emirates News Agency, or WAM, reported that the UAE’s president, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, met with Sharaa in Abu Dhabi and "wished him success in leading Syria through the coming period and in fulfilling the Syrian people's hopes for development, security, and stability."

The statement said the "two leaders discussed a number of issues of mutual interest and exchanged views on regional and international developments."

Like many other Arab countries, the UAE cut off relations with Assad's government after its brutal crackdown on anti-government protests in 2011 that escalated into a civil war. However, the UAE was one of the first to restore ties, reopening its embassy in Damascus in December 2018. In 2022, Assad visited the UAE in his first visit to an Arab country after the war erupted.

Other Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, were quick to welcome Syria's new rulers led by al-Sharaa, an Islamist former insurgent who led the charge that unseated Assad. But the UAE, which has historically been anxious about Islamist political movements, has taken a more cautious approach to the new authorities in Damascus.

Syria's new rulers have sought to bolster their regional ties as they struggle to rebuild the country’s economy and infrastructure after nearly 14 years of war, consolidate control over the territory and bring together a patchwork of armed groups with their own leadership into a national army.

They are also facing challenges from Israel, which has launched a campaign of airstrikes and moved ground troops in to seize a U.N.-patrolled buffer zone on Syrian territory since the fall of Assad. The zone was set up under a 1974 ceasefire agreement.

Syria's new authorities and U.N. officials have said Israel is violating the agreement and called for it to withdraw. Israeli officials say they are protecting their borders and plan to stay indefinitely.

The UAE, as one of a handful of Arab countries that has normalized ties with Israel, could play a role in mediating between the two countries.