WASHINGTON: Syria&#39;s President Ahmed al-Sharaa arrived in the United States on Saturday for a landmark official visit, his country&#39;s state news agency reported, a day after Washington removed him from a terrorism blacklist.&nbsp;Sharaa, whose rebel forces ousted longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad late last year, is due to meet US President Donald Trump at the White House on Monday.&nbsp;It&#39;s the first such visit by a Syrian president since the country&#39;s independence in 1946, according to analysts.&nbsp;The interim leader met Trump for the first time in Riyadh during the US president&#39;s regional tour in May.&nbsp;US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack said earlier this month that Sharaa would &quot;hopefully&quot; sign an agreement to join the international US-led alliance against the Islamic State (IS).&nbsp;The United States plans to establish a military base near Damascus &quot;to coordinate humanitarian aid and observe developments between Syria and Israel,&quot; a diplomatic source in Syria told AFP.&nbsp;The State Department&#39;s decision Friday to remove Sharaa from the blacklist was widely expected.&nbsp;State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said Sharaa&#39;s government had been meeting US demands including on working to find missing Americans and on eliminating any remaining chemical weapons.&nbsp;&quot;These actions are being taken in recognition of the progress demonstrated by the Syrian leadership after the departure of Bashar al-Assad and more than 50 years of repression under the Assad regime,&quot; Pigott said.&nbsp;The spokesman added that the US delisting would promote &quot;regional security and stability as well as an inclusive, Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political process.&quot;&nbsp;Transformation Sharaa&#39;s Washington trip comes after his landmark visit to the United Nations in September &mdash; his first time on US soil &mdash; where the ex-jihadist became the first Syrian president in decades to address the UN General Assembly in New York.&nbsp;On Thursday, Washington led a vote by the Security Council to remove UN sanctions against him.&nbsp;Formerly affiliated with Al-Qaeda, Sharaa&#39;s group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), was delisted as a terrorist group by Washington as recently as July.&nbsp;Since taking power, Syria&#39;s new leaders have sought to break from their violent past and present a moderate image more tolerable to ordinary Syrians and foreign powers.&nbsp;The White House visit &quot;is further testament to the US commitment to the new Syria and a hugely symbolic moment for the country&#39;s new leader, who thus marks another step in his astonishing transformation from militant leader to global statesman,&quot; International Crisis Group US program director Michael Hanna said.&nbsp;Sharaa is expected to seek funds for Syria, which faces significant challenges in rebuilding after 13 years of brutal civil war.&nbsp;In October, the World Bank put a &quot;conservative best estimate&quot; of the cost of rebuilding Syria at $216 billion.

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Sharaa, whose rebel forces ousted longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad late last year, is due to meet US President Donald Trump at the White House on Monday.

Syrian president arrives in US for landmark visit

MANAMA: Syria&rsquo;s president will discuss issues including lifting remaining sanctions, reconstruction and counterterrorism when he becomes the country&rsquo;s first leader to pay an official visit to Washington later this month, the foreign minister said Sunday. Ahmed Al-Sharaa is expected in the US capital in early November, Syria&rsquo;s top diplomat Asaad Al-Shaibani told a panel at the Manama Dialogue in Bahrain. &ldquo;This visit is certainly historic,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Many topics will be discussed, starting with the lifting of sanctions,&rdquo; Shaibani said, adding: &ldquo;Today we are fighting [the Islamic State]... any effort in this regard requires international support.&rdquo; Discussions will also revolve around reconstruction after more than a decade of war, he said. The foreign ministry in Damascus confirmed the trip would be the first ever visit to the White House by a Syrian president. On Saturday, US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack said Sharaa was heading to Washington &ldquo;hopefully&rdquo; to sign an agreement to join the international US-led alliance against the Islamic State (IS). Though it will be Sharaa&rsquo;s first visit to Washington, it will be his second to the US after a landmark UN trip in September, where the former jihadist became the first Syrian president in decades to address the UN General Assembly in New York. In May, the interim leader, whose Islamist forces ousted longtime ruler Bashar Assad late last year, met US President Donald Trump for the first time in Riyadh during a historic visit that led to the US leader vowing to lift economic sanctions on Syria. Israel talksSyria and Israel remain technically at war, but they opened direct negotiations after Assad was toppled by an Islamist-led coalition last December. Trump has expressed hope that Syria will join other Arab countries that have normalized ties with Israel under the so-called Abraham Accords. But Shaibani said that &ldquo;regarding Syria and the Abraham Accords, this is an issue that is not being considered and has not been discussed.&rdquo;A Syrian official had told AFP earlier this year that Syria expects to finalize security and military agreements with Israel in 2025, in what would be a breakthrough less than a year after Assad&rsquo;s ouster. Since December, Israel has deployed troops in a UN-patrolled buffer zone that separates the countries&rsquo; forces and has launched hundreds of strikes in Syria. Damascus has not retaliated. &ldquo;We do not want Syria to enter a new war, and Syria is not currently in a position to threaten any party, including Israel,&rdquo; said Shaibani. He said the negotiations underway were focused on &ldquo;reaching a security agreement that does not undermine the 1974 agreement (cementing a ceasefire with Israel) and does not legitimize any new reality that Israel might impose in the south.&rdquo;

Ahmed Al-Sharaa will make a historic Washington visit to discuss sanctions, reconstruction, and counterterrorism, while Israel talks focus on security, not normalization under Abraham Accords.

Syrian leader to discuss sanctions, reconstruction in US visit: FM

DAMASCUS: Syria will select members of its first post-Assad parliament on Sunday in a process criticized as undemocratic, with a third of the members appointed by interim leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.&nbsp;The assembly&#39;s formation is set to consolidate the power of Sharaa, whose forces led a coalition that toppled longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in December after more than 13 years of civil war and five decades of one-family rule.&nbsp;According to the organizing committee, more than 1,500 candidates &mdash; just 14 percent of them women &mdash; are running for the assembly, which will have a renewable 30-month mandate.&nbsp;Sharaa is to appoint 70 representatives out of the 210-member body.&nbsp;The other two-thirds will be selected by local committees appointed by the electoral commission, which itself was appointed by Sharaa.&nbsp;But southern Syria&#39;s Druze-majority Sweida province, which suffered sectarian bloodshed in July, and the country&#39;s Kurdish-held northeast are excluded from the process for now as they are outside Damascus&#39;s control, and their 32 seats will remain empty.&nbsp;&quot;I support the authorities and I&#39;m ready to defend them, but these aren&#39;t real elections,&quot; said Louay al-Arfi, 77, a retired civil servant sitting with friends at a Damascus cafe.&nbsp;&quot;It&#39;s a necessity in the transitional phase, but we want direct elections&quot; to follow, he told AFP.&nbsp;The new authorities dissolved Syria&#39;s rubber-stamp legislature after taking power.&nbsp;Under a temporary constitution announced in March, the incoming parliament will exercise legislative functions until a permanent constitution is adopted, and new elections are held.&nbsp;Sharaa has said it would be impossible to organize direct elections now, noting the large number of Syrians who lack documentation after millions fled abroad or were displaced internally during the country&#39;s civil war.&nbsp;&#39;Not elections&#39;&nbsp;Around 6,000 people are taking part in Sunday&#39;s selection process.&nbsp;Preliminary results are expected to be announced after the event, with the final list of names to be revealed on Monday.&nbsp;Under the rules, candidates must not be &quot;supporters of the former regime&quot; and must not promote secession or partition.&nbsp;Those running include Syrian American Henry Hamra, the first Jewish candidate since the 1940s.&nbsp;Rights groups have criticized the selection process, saying it concentrates power in Sharaa&#39;s hands and lacks representation for the country&#39;s ethnic and religious minorities.&nbsp;In a joint statement last month, more than a dozen non-governmental organizations said the process means Sharaa &quot;can effectively shape a parliamentary majority composed of individuals he selected or ensured loyalty from,&quot; which risked &quot;undermining the principle of pluralism essential to any genuine democratic process.&quot;&nbsp;&quot;You can call the process what you like, but not elections,&quot; said Bassam Alahmad, executive director of the France-based Syrians for Truth and Justice, among the groups that signed the statement.&nbsp;At a meeting in Damascus this week, candidate Mayssa Halwani, 48, said criticism was normal.&nbsp;&quot;The government is new to power and freedom is new for us,&quot; she said.&nbsp;Nishan Ismail, 40, a teacher in the Kurdish-controlled northeast, said &quot;elections could have been a new political start&quot; after Assad&#39;s fall, but &quot;the marginalization of numerous regions shows that the standards of political participation are not respected.&quot;&nbsp;Negotiations on integrating the Kurds&#39; civil and military institutions into the new central government have stalled, with Damascus rejecting calls for decentralization.&nbsp;In southern Syria&#39;s Druze-held city of Sweida, activist Burhan Azzam, 48, expressed a similar sentiment.&nbsp;The authorities &quot;have ended political life&quot; in Syria, he said, adding that the selection process &quot;doesn&#39;t respect the basic rules of democracy.&quot;

The assembly's formation is set to consolidate the power of Sharaa, whose forces led a coalition that toppled longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in December after more than 13 years of civil war and five decades of one-family rule.

Articles tagged with "Ahmed al-Sharaa"

Syrian president arrives in US for landmark visit

Syrian leader to discuss sanctions, reconstruction in US visit: FM

Syria selects members of first post-Assad parliament in contested process