President Trump said on Tuesday that he would raise sanctions against Syria and give an economic lifeline to a country destroyed by almost 14 years of civil war and decades of dictatorship under the Assad family.
Mr. Trump was expected to meet for the first time with the new president of Syria, Ahmed Al-Sharar, on Wednesday in Saudi Arabia, where he will pay the first major state visit of his second term. Mr. Al-Shara led the Rebel Alliance that President Bashar al-Assad drove out in December.
The American president announced the end of the sanctions against Syria when he spoke a business forum in the Saudi capital, Riyad, where the crowd erupted in cheer and gave him a standing ovation.
The decision marks a sea change for Syria and the breakthrough of the economic stranglehold on a country that is considered crucial for the stability of the middle East.
“There is a new government that will hopefully succeed in stabilizing the country and retaining peace,” said Mr Trump. “That’s what we want to see in Syria.”
He said he came to the decision after speaking with the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who supported the anti-assad uprising, and the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman. The prince said this week that he would work to increase the total dedicated investment of Riyad in the United States during the Trump presidency from $ 600 billion to $ 1 trillion, as Mr Trump asked.
“I will order the termination of sanctions on Syria,” said Mr Trump, speaking of gigantic projections of the US and Saudi flags, to an audience that is under an enormous chandelier. “Oh what I do for the crown prince,” he added, laughing from the enthusiastic crowd.
An official of the White House said that Mr Trump agreed to “say hello” to the Syrian president, while both are in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, according to the presspool who travels with the US president.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Syria, Asad Hassan Al-Shaibani, greeted the movement in a statement as ‘a victory for justice and a re-confirmation of Arab unit’ and as ‘a new beginning on the path to reconstruction’. In the Syrian capital, Damascus, drivers were honored their horns in honor of the news while the news spread.
People flocked into the streets of the big cities of Syria, honking car -horns to celebrate news that they hope will illuminate the crushing poverty that many have confronted in the country.
“It is a huge sense of happiness,” said Mohammed Masri, a 53 -year -old resident of Damascus who had come to the central Umayyad square of the capital to celebrate. He addressed the US and Saudi governments: “We thank them for their efforts and their love for Syria. Long live Syria, free and independent.”
A face-to-face encounter with Mr. Trump offers Mr. Al-Sharara a unique opportunity to make his business with the power to give the future of Syria dramatically. It also marks a stunning turnaround for the man who once led a branch of Al Qaida, but broke ties with the Jihadist group, who tried to moderate his image in the hope of getting broader traction.
In the months since a rebel coalition seized control of the Syrian capital, Damascus, and Mr Al-Assad, the United States held a multi-layered sanction regime that has pushed the country to drive the edge of economic collapse with the war.
Mr. Al-Shara and other Syrian officials have argued that the fall of the regime should put an end to sanctions, many of which were introduced in response to the brutal action of the Assad dictatorship against an uprising that started in 2011 and changed to a civil war.
“The sanctions were implemented as a response to crimes committed by the previous regime against the people,” Mr. Al-Shara told the New York Times in a interview last month.
Proponents and critics of Mr Al-Sharara government have argued that the elimination of sanctions is crucial to allowing a stream of international aid and investments that could help the country recover from the war.
Various Arab countries had called for sanctions to lift Syria so that they can offer auxiliary and reconstruction assistance and European countries have lifted part of their sanctions.
But the Trump government kept for months distance from the young government of Mr. Al-Shara. Some American officials have spoken a deep skepticism about the motives of Mr Al-Sharara and his promises to protect religious minorities, pointing to his Islamic orientation and history with Al Qaeda.
The American administration had avoided high-level assignments with the government of Mr. Al-Sharara and demand for the fight against terrorism and other issues that it says that the sanctions must be paid.
The Syrian government has said that some requirements, such as a ban on foreign hunters in the government of Syria and forces, must be negotiated. But at the same time it has taken steps to meet other requirements.
Syria has recently brought a team of forensic experts from Qatar to look for the remains of Americans killed by the Islamic state group.
And Syrian officials have told American intermediaries that they tried to avoid conflicts with all neighboring countries, including Israel, and welcomed the American investments.
For months Syrians and some of their Gulf Arabic donors had difficulty getting attention to the Trump government about the sanction issue.
European leaders, who would like to promote stability and prevent new migration waves, have also insisted on more economic involvement.
Last week, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, offered a diplomatic boost to Mr Al-Sharara, the first European leader organizing and urged the Syrian president to gradually lift the sanctions of the European Union on Syria, provided that the new leaders of the country maintain their path to stability.
He promised to press the Trump administration to consider a similar approach.
“I told the Syrian president that if he continued to follow his path, we would continue with ours,” said Mr. Macron.
- Advertisement -
