Trump’s meeting with Sharaa, unthinkable only months ago, enhances the hopes of Syrians

Donald Trump said his administration is now investigating the possibility of normalizing relations with Syria-comments, coming shortly after he met with the temporary president of Syria Ahmed al-Shara, whose forces ended with the duration of the Assad family.

An exceptional meeting, unthinkable only months ago, was short, but significant.

“I think he got the potential,” Trump noted after his meeting in Riyadh, 37 minutes long, with the former Syrian ex -former being linked to al -Qaeda.

The US rich at $ 10 million on his head was raised only in December.

Video footage of their conversation in a gorgeous Saudi royal palace showed some initial inconvenience as they spoke through a translator.

Next to them, a shining Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, was sitting next to them. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan joined them by phone.

Trump admitted that it was these two leaders who convinced him to cancel the US criminal sanctions in Syria.

His sudden message on Tuesday night at a large investment forum in the United States in Riyadh won him a standing ovation. After his many previous social media publications, it was a will that the US had no interest in Syria.

“A difficult man, a very strong past,” Trump later described Sharaa to journalists traveling with his high-power US delegation on his first official four-day tour.

It was a very shine of Trump for the old Sharaa ties with al -Qaeda. His Islamist band Hayat Tahrir al -Sham (HTS) was a branch of al -Qaeda in Syria until he divided his connections in 2016. HTS was still identified as a UN terrorist organization, the US and the UK.

Since accepting power in December, Sharaa has been carrying Western business costumes and has been trying to present himself as president for all Syrians.

“This is a new light at the end of this tunnel,” Hind Cabat exclaimed, Minister of Social Affairs and Labor, in the Provisional Government.

She told the BBC Newshour program that they have been calling for sanctions to relieve the “Liberation Day”.

The US decision has caused celebrations in a county that says 90% of Syrians live in poverty after more than a decade of civil war and deep suffering.

The elimination of restrictions that reduce Syria from the international financial system will allow more involvement than help agencies and will encourage foreign investment and trade.

“We are North Korea in the Middle East,” I told me a receptionist at a hotel in Damascus last December when I asked for another electronic hotel key.

He tearfully complained that “we don’t have enough cards, we have a shortage of everything.”

This can also help to convince some of the millions of Syrians living in exile, to think more seriously about their return home. And this can help the newly hatched government pay salaries, start recovering and deal with increasing dissatisfaction with the deprivation of everyday life.

But dismantling the huge network of sanctions that are now strangling Syria will take time.

“Some sanctions can be removed immediately with the help of presidential refusals,” said Bloomberg Economics Dina Esfandiary.

“But lifting multi -layer sanctions will not be easy and will require a real commitment from the Trump administration.”

I remember traveling to Tehran after the nuclear deal in Iran in 2015 and the Obama administration’s commitment to facilitate the sanctions there.

At the press conference with the high representative of the EU’s visit to foreign policy, Iranian journalists were constantly asked, with a tangible grief, why it was still impossible to even open a bank account.

New friends in Syria, including regional forces such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey, are now positioning themselves to form the new Syria, will have to ensure that Trump and his team remain interested.

But he made it clear that he was expecting something in return if there was to be a complete normalization of the relationship. The first element of his list is “Join the Akams Agreements”.

The US President refers to this process of normalization with Israel, to which several Arab countries have joined, including the United Arab Emirates, as one of his foreign policy achievements in his first term.

Sharaa, praised by her friends as pragmatic, has already signaled that she understands the importance of building a working relationship with her neighbor, although Israel continues to bomb what he calls “terrorist goals” – air bases, military installations and weapons – insisting that they can “fall into the wrong hands”.

Last month, the Syrian leader reported that he was visiting the US Congressman Corey Mills, that Syria was ready to normalize relations with Israel and join the Abraham agreements under the “right conditions”.

Israeli media reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on President Trump not to cancel sanctions. He remains suspicious of Sharaa and his HTS forces, as well as other groups that include foreign fighters in their ranks.

The removal of foreign fighters is different from Washington’s demands; This is one of the many challenges that Syria’s leader faces.

President Trump welcomes this moment as a “chance of greatness.” Millions of Syrians just welcome a bigger chance that their lives will finally start to change for better.