DUBAI (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump is meeting Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa ahead of the GCC summit in Riyadh on Wednesday, a day after announcing that the United States was lifting sanctions on Syria, a pool report from The Washington Post said.
The announcement came despite concerns within parts of Trump’s administration because Sharaa was previously designated a terrorist by Washington due to past links to al-Qaeda.
Sharaa renounced ties to the group in 2016.
U.S. ally Israel has opposed sanctions relief for Syria, but Trump on Tuesday said that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, who are both close to the U.S. president, encouraged him to make the move.
Trump is on a four-day visit to the oil-rich Gulf states that includes stops in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.
(Reporting by Nayera Abdallah, Jana Choukeir, and Tala Ramadan; editing by Andrew Heavens and Alex Richardson)
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