Marco Rubio Meets Syria’s Foreign Minister, in Another Sign of Warming Ties
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The meeting came days after President Trump announced he would end sanctions against Syria and met with the country’s president, a former jihadist.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Syria’s foreign minister on Thursday, the latest sign of growing U.S. support after President Trump announced this week that he was lifting U.S. sanctions on Syria.
The meeting in Antalya, Turkey, came two days after Mr. Trump made the surprise sanctions announcement during a visit to Saudi Arabia, which could throw Syria a desperately needed economic lifeline after nearly 14 years of civil war and decades of dictatorship. The next day, Mr. Trump met Syria’s president, Ahmed al-Shara, a former rebel leader, for the first time.
In their meeting on Thursday, Mr. Rubio and his Syrian counterpart, Asaad Hassan al-Shaibani, discussed a road map for lifting sanctions, according to statements from the Turkish and Syrian foreign ministries. The exact terms of the process and timeline remain unclear.
Mr. Trump’s pledge to end the sanctions was widely seen as a major victory for Syria’s new authorities, led by Mr. al-Shara, who has sought to establish his government on the world stage after his rebel coalition ousted the dictator Bashar al-Assad in December.
The timeline for removing sanctions and the mechanism by which they will be lifted remained unclear. While the president has the power to lift some restrictions, Congress would have to remove others, and experts warn that the process for doing so will take time.
on Thursday, the Treasury Department announced on X that it was starting the process of lifting sanctions at Mr. Trump’s direction.