{"id":47044,"date":"2025-05-15T02:51:55","date_gmt":"2025-05-15T02:51:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/?p=47044"},"modified":"2025-05-15T02:51:59","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T02:51:59","slug":"trumps-meeting-with-sharaa-unthinkable-just-months-ago-boosts-syrians-hopes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/?p=47044","title":{"rendered":"Trump&#8217;s meeting with Sharaa, unthinkable just months ago, boosts Syrians&#8217; hopes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">BBC:   <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Donald Trump has said his administration is now exploring the possibility of normalising relations with Syria &#8211; his comments coming shortly after he met Syria&#8217;s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, whose forces ended the decades-long dictatorship of the Assad family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The extraordinary encounter, unthinkable just months ago, was short but significant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;I think he has got the potential,&#8221; Trump remarked after his meeting in Riyadh, 37 minutes long, with the former Syrian fighter formerly linked to al-Qaeda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The $10m US bounty on his head was only lifted in December.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Video footage of their conversation in a lavish Saudi royal palace showed some initial awkwardness as they spoke through a translator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A beaming Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammad bin Salman, sat next to them. The Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan joined them by telephone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Trump acknowledged it was these two leaders who had convinced him to also lift the US&#8217;s punishing Syria sanctions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">His sudden announcement on Tuesday night at a major US-Saudi investment forum in Riyadh won him a standing ovation. It was a volte-face after his many previous posts on social media that the US had &#8220;no interest in Syria&#8221;.<video playsinline=\"playsinline\"><\/video><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">0:29Watch: &#8216;Young, attractive guy&#8217; &#8211; Trump talks about Syrian president<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;Tough guy, very strong past,&#8221; is how Trump later described Sharaa to journalists travelling with his high-powered American delegation on his first official four-day tour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It was a very Trump gloss about Sharaa&#8217;s old links to al-Qaeda. His Islamist group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), was al-Qaeda&#8217;s affiliate in Syria until he severed ties in 2016. HTS is still designated as a terrorist organisation by the UN, US and UK.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Since assuming power in December, Sharaa has been wearing Western business suits and trying to present himself as a president for all Syrians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;It&#8217;s a new light at the end of this tunnel,&#8221; exclaimed Hind Kabawat, minister of social affairs and labour, in the interim government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">She told the BBC&#8217;s Newshour programme they had been calling for sanctions relief ever since their &#8220;Liberation Day&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The US decision sparked celebrations across a county where 90% of Syrians are said to be living in poverty, after more than a decade of civil war and profound suffering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Removing restrictions which cut Syria off from the international financial system will enable greater engagement by aid agencies and encourage foreign investment and trade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BBC: Donald Trump has said his administration is now exploring the possibility of normalising relations with Syria &#8211; his comments coming shortly after he met Syria&#8217;s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, whose forces ended the decades-long dictatorship of the Assad family. The extraordinary encounter, unthinkable just months ago, was short but significant. &#8220;I think he has got the potential,&#8221; Trump remarked after his meeting in Riyadh, 37 minutes long, with the former Syrian fighter formerly linked to al-Qaeda. The $10m US bounty on his head was only lifted in December. Video footage of their conversation in a lavish Saudi royal palace&#8230; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47045,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47044"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47044\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47046,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47044\/revisions\/47046"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/47045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}