Trump meets with de-facto Syrian president al-Sharaa in Saudi Arabia

U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday met with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa in Riyadh, a U.S. government representative confirmed.

The meeting took place in the Saudi capital before a scheduled meeting between Trump and leaders of several Gulf countries.

It is the first between a U.S. and Syrian Presidents in around 25 years.

The meeting also came a day after Trump said that he would be lifting sanctions imposed on Damascus.

Trump, who was in Saudi Arabia for the first leg of his three-nation Gulf tour, said lifting the sanctions were a chance for the war-torn country to shine.

The White House said on Tuesday that Trump had agreed to say hello to the Syrian President.

Sanctions were imposed by the U.S. and other countries in response to former president Bashar al-Assad’s brutal crackdown on protesters in 2011.

The violence in his regime carried out against civilians during the ensuing civil war.

Al-Assad was overthrown in early December by an Islamist rebel alliance led by al-Sharaa, who was later appointed interim president.

Once an insurgent leader, al-Sharaa has since renounced both al-Qaeda and Islamic State.

However, doubts remain as to whether he has fully abandoned extremist ideology and he is still listed on U.S. and EU terrorist lists.

The last meeting between U.S. and Syrian leaders was in 2000 between then presidents Bill Clinton and Bashar’s father, Hafez al-Assad.