Trump ends Syria sanctions and offers Iran olive branch

US president Donald Trump has said he is ordering the lifting of US sanctions on Syria to start the process of normalising relations between Washington and Damascus in hopes of bolstering the war-torn country's new government.

- ANDREW FEINBERG

His announcement comes more than a decade after the Obama administration severed diplomatic ties at the outset of the civil war that ended with the ousting of dictator Bashar al-Assad last year.

Speaking in Riyadh, where he addressed a Saudi-American investment forum on the first day of his four-day, three-country swing through the Middle East, Mr Trump said the new Syrian government “will hopefully succeed in stabilising the country and keeping peace” after the country’s people had seen “their share of travesty and war” over “many years”.

He told the audience of Saudi and American dignitaries that secretary of state Marco Rubio will meet with the new Syrian foreign minister in Turkey later in the week, and, citing discussions with Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman and Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Mr Trump also revealed that he is ordering “the cessation of sanctions against Syria” to give the new government “a chance at greatness”.

“The sanctions were brutal and crippling and served an important, really an important function, nevertheless, at the time, but now it’s their time to shine. It’s their time to shine. We’re taking them all off,” he said. “So I say, good luck Syria. Show us something very special, like they’ve done, frankly, in Saudi Arabia.”

Ahead of the president’s speech, a White House official also said Mr Trump had “agreed to say hello” to Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa – the former Islamic militant leader who has served as Syria’s de facto president since Mr Assad fled the country and took up an offer of asylum in Russia last December – even though Mr Sharaa remains on a list of terrorists maintained by the American government.

Mr Sharaa once fought with al-Qaeda in Iraq after the US-led invasion in 2003. He later led the Syrian branch of the terror organisation that carried out the 9/11 attacks, before breaking away in 2016 to form what became Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the group that ousted Mr Assad.