Trump hosts Syrian leader al-Sharaa at White House

US President Donald Trump is hosting Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa at the White House, welcoming the once-pariah state into a US-led global coalition to fight the so-called Islamic State (IS) group.

It is the first visit to the White House by a Syrian head of state since the Middle Eastern country gained independence from France in 1946 and comes after the US lifted sanctions imposed on Syria during the decades the country was ruled by the Assad family.

Mr al-Sharaa arrived at the White House a little after 11.30am and began his Oval Office meeting shortly afterwards.

The meeting is closed to the press, and the Syrian president entered the building through West Executive Avenue, adjacent to the White House, rather than on the West Wing driveway used for other foreign leaders’ arrivals.

Mr Al-Sharaa led the rebel forces that toppled Syrian president Bashar Assad last December and was named the country’s interim leader in January.

Mr Trump and Mr al-Sharaa – who once had ties to al Qaida and had a 10 million-dollar (£7.6 million) US bounty on his head – first met in May in Saudi Arabia.

At the time, the US president described Mr al-Sharaa as a “young, attractive guy. Tough guy. Strong past, very strong past. Fighter”.

It was the first official encounter between the US and Syria since 2000, when then-president Bill Clinton met Hafez Assad, the father of Bashar Assad.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday’s visit is “part of the president’s efforts in diplomacy to meet with anyone around the world in the pursuit of peace”.

Mr Trump, a Republican, has recently said that Mr al-Sharaa is “doing a very good job so far” and that a “lot of progress has been made with Syria” since the US eased sanctions.

One official with knowledge of the administration’s plans said Syria’s entry into the global coalition fighting IS will allow it to work more closely with US forces, although the new Syrian military and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in the country’s northeast had already been fighting the group.

Before Mr al-Sharaa’s arrival in the US, the United Nations Security Council voted to lift sanctions on the Syrian president and other government officials in a move that the US ambassador to the UN, Mike Waltz, said was a strong sign that Syria is in a new era since the fall of Mr Assad.

Mr al-Sharaa comes into the meeting with his own priorities. He wants a permanent repeal of sanctions that punished Syria for widespread allegations of human rights abuses by Mr Assad’s government and security forces. While the Caesar Act sanctions are currently waived by Mr Trump, a permanent repeal would require Congress to act.

One option is a proposal from Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, that would end the sanctions without any conditions. The other was drafted by Senator Lindsey Graham, a hawkish Trump ally who wants to set conditions for a sanctions repeal that would be reviewed every six months.

But advocates argue that any repeal with conditions would prevent companies from investing in Syria because they would fear potentially being sanctioned.

Mouaz Moustafa, executive director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, likened it to a “hanging shadow that paralyses any initiatives for our country”.