US President Donald Trump plans to meet at least briefly Wednesday with Syria’s new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa while in Riyadh, a US official said.
“The president agreed to say hello to the Syrian president while in Saudi Arabia tomorrow,” the White House official said Tuesday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The meeting comes despite misgivings about the direction of Syria from US ally Israel, which has unleashed military strikes on its neighbour both before and after the December fall of Bashar al-Assad.
Sharaa, who headed an Islamist-led coalition that toppled Assad in December, has been pushing for the removal of US sanctions, a step that Trump has said he is considering.
On Monday, he said “We may take them off of Syria because we want to give them a fresh start”.
The United States has previously said that Syria needs to take further action on key issues, including protections for minorities, for Washington to lift its sanctions, including working to ensure the rights of minorities.
There have been deadly attacks on the Alawite and Druze minorities in Syria since the fall of Assad.
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