Now my kids have a future' Handshake that brought hope to war-weary Syrians

Handshake That Brought Hope To War-Weary Syrians

- William Christou

In 2006, Ahmed al-Sharaa, then an al-Qaida fighter waging jihad against what he viewed as an American occupation of the Middle East, was sitting in a US prison in Iraq. On Wednesday, nearly two decades later, he posed for a photo with the US president, Donald Trump, in Riyadh after discussing normalising ties with Israel and granting the US access to Syrian oil.

The transformation of Sharaa over the past 20 years from al-Qaida fighter to the president of Syria, sharing the world stage with foreign leaders including Trump, is staggering. For Syrians, the pace of change has been whiplash-inducing.

In just six months, since the toppling of the former president Bashar al-Assad, Syria has gone from a global pariah labouring under some of the world's most intense sanctions, to a country of promise. This week, Trump announced he would end all US sanctions on Syria, a move he said "gives them a chance at greatness".

Syria, a weary country, is finally seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. Across the country, eyes were glued to television screens that replayed video of Sharaa meeting Trump; hands gesticulated fervently as debates over the ending of sanctions raged in homes across Syria.

"You need to wait a bit. There are steps that need to be taken by the experts," an elderly man cautioned his peer, pausing for breath as they struggled to cycle up the narrow streets of old Damascus. Their slow ascent on rickety bicycles is a common sight in a city where cars and fuel are out of reach for much of the country's war-battered, sanctions-laden population.