According to Saudi state news agency SPA, Syria’s interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, visited Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh on Sunday.
Sharaa and the crown prince were seen shaking hands in the Saudi capital on live television before they sat down to speak. Asaad Hassan al-Shibani, the foreign minister, accompanied the Syrian leader on his visit.
According to his office, Sharaa is in Saudi Arabia for the first time since Bashar al-Assad was overthrown.
“President Sharaa and Asaad al-Shaibani travel to Saudi Arabia, their first official visit,” was the description of the picture of the president issued on X of Sharaa and his foreign minister on what appears to be an official aircraft.
On Wednesday, Sharaa, whose Islamist organization spearheaded the ouster of Assad in December, was appointed interim president.
The first to greet Sharaa on his official appointment were King Salman of Saudi Arabia and his son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the nation’s de facto ruler.
“Strategic service”
Riyadh is “playing a key role in reintegrating the new Syria into the Arab world and onto the international stage,” according to Rabha Seif Allam, a regional analyst at Cairo’s Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies.
She claimed that the stabilization of Syria would “directly benefit” Saudi Arabia, the largest economy in the Arab world.
“Drug trafficking from Syria to the Gulf countries, which had been a destabilizing element, is now a thing of the past, and Iran is no longer present in Syria, diminishing its regional influence.
Despite lifting a seven-year diplomatic pact in 2023, Saudi Arabia and Iran are still at odds over a number of geopolitical problems, such as the Syrian civil war, in which they have supported opposing parties.
Additionally, Syria is demanding that the international sanctions that have hindered its economy be lifted.
The United States first designated Syria a “state sponsor of terrorism” in 1979, but Washington and other Western nations greatly increased the sanctions after Assad suppressed anti-government demonstrations in 2011 and ignited the civil war.
Rich Gulf nations are being enlisted by the Syrian government to help rebuild their war-torn country and boost its economy.
In order “to consolidate stability and move forward with reconstruction, development, and prosperity projects,” Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, who arrived in Damascus on Thursday, “emphasized the urgent need to form an administration representing all the spectrum” of Syrian community.
Damascus said the two parties talked about rebuilding.
Since overthrowing Assad in December, a constant flow of diplomats has visited Syria under the new government.
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