Syrian | Pakistan

Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa arrived in the United States on Saturday for a landmark official visit, his country’s state news agency reported, a day after Washington removed him from a terrorism blacklist. 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. It’s the first such visit by a Syrian president since the country’s independence in 1946, according to analysts. The interim leader met Trump for the first time in Riyadh during the US president’s regional tour in May. US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack said earlier this month that Sharaa would “hopefully” sign an agreement to join the international US-led alliance against the militant Islamic State (IS) group. The United States plans to establish a military base near Damascus “to coordinate humanitarian aid and observe developments between Syria and Israel”, a diplomatic source in Syria told AFP. The State Department’s decision Friday to remove Sharaa from ...

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa has departed for the United States, state media reported on Sunday, on a landmark trip that will see him address the United Nations General Assembly. State television said Sharaa was en route “to the United States of America to participate in the affairs of the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York”, citing a presidency statement. Sharaa seized power in December after his rebel group led a lightning offensive that toppled longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad after nearly 14 years of civil war and more than half a century of brutal family rule. He is set to speak at the UN General Assembly in New York, the first Syrian leader to do so since Nureddin al-Atassi in 1967. Sharaa has undergone a dramatic transformation since taking power, meeting foreign leaders such as US President Donald Trump in Riyadh and French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on his first trip to the West. In a pre-recorded interview broadcast on Sunday, Sharaa told US broadcaster CBS tha...

Syria’s interim government said its security forces were deploying in the predominantly-Druze southern city of Sweida on Saturday and urged all parties to respect a ceasefire, after days of factional bloodshed that has left hundreds dead. Interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, in a separate speech, said that “Arab and American” mediation had helped bring calm, and criticised Israel for airstrikes against Syrian government forces in the south and Damascus during the week. Sweida province has been engulfed by nearly a week of violence, which began with clashes between Bedouin fighters and Druze factions, before Damascus sent in government security forces. Israel has carried out airstrikes in southern Syria and on the defence ministry in Damascus, saying it is protecting the Druze minority, of whom there are a significant number in Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. In a statement on Saturday, the Syrian presidency announced an immediate and comprehensive ceasefire and urged all parties to end hostilitie...

A Syrian and an Israeli official are expected to meet in Baku later on Saturday on the sidelines of Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s visit to Azerbaijan, a diplomatic source in Damascus with knowledge of the issue said. “There will be a meeting between a Syrian official and an Israeli official on the sidelines of the visit being conducted by Sharaa in Baku,” said the source, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue. Israel is a major arms supplier to Azerbaijan and has a significant diplomatic presence in the Caucasus nation, which neighbours its arch foe Iran. The diplomatic source stressed that Sharaa himself would not attend the Baku meeting, which would focus on “the recent Israeli military presence in Syria”. After the overthrow of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in December, Israel carried out hundreds of air strikes in Syria to prevent key military assets from falling into the hands of the interim administration headed by Sharaa. It also sent troops into the UN-patrolled buffer zone...