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Donald Trump said he would lift US sanctions on Syria during his visit to Saudi Arabia, as Arab states push Washington to support the nascent government’s efforts to stabilise the war-devastated nation.
A White House official said the US president would also meet Syria’s new president Ahmed al-Sharaa in Riyadh on Wednesday, saying Trump “agreed to say hello” to the Syrian leader.
Trump said that, after speaking with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, “I will be ordering the cessation of sanctions against Syria in order to give them a chance at greatness”.
He added: “The sanctions were brutally crippling and served an important function, nevertheless, at the time. But now is their time to shine. We’re taking them off.”
The moves suggest a softening of the Trump administration’s stance towards Syria after Sharaa’s Islamist movement led a rebel offensive that toppled dictator Bashar al-Assad and ended his family’s 50-year dynastic rule over the Arab state.
Syrians and Arab states have urged western powers to lift Assad-era sanctions on the country as they warn that reviving the bankrupt economy is the most challenging task facing Sharaa’s transitional government.
Additional reporting by Raya Jalabi in Beirut. This is a developing story
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