Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan held a videoconference with US President Donald Trump and Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, who were in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, together with Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Turkish media reported in recent hours that Erdoğan joined an online meeting held jointly with Trump, Al-Sharaa and Salman, in what was the first face-to-face meeting between the US president and the new leader of Syria, on which Washington had maintained harsh restrictions on financial transactions in response to the brutal repression by the Assad regime during the bloody civil war that ravaged the country for more than a decade.
During the conversation, the Turkish president described Trump’s decision to lift the sanctions as a historic step and stressed that Turkey will continue to support Damascus in its fight against terrorism, particularly against Daesh (ISIS), while assuring that Ankara will continue to try to stop the humanitarian tragedy and the war in Gaza.
Trump’s visit to Riyadh, part of a tour of several countries in the region, was his first abroad during his second term in the White House. The US president, who yesterday announced his decision to lift the ‘brutal and devastating’ sanctions that have weighed on Syria’s economy and reconstruction for years, acknowledging that Erdoğan himself had convinced him to take such a decision, nevertheless asked Al-Sharaa today, in return, that Syria normalise its relations with Israel.
Trump announces end of ‘brutal’ sanctions on Syria
‘After discussing the situation in Syria with the crown prince, your crown prince, and also with President Erdoğan of Türkiye, who called me the other day and asked for a very similar thing, among others and friends of mine, people that I have a lot of respect for in the Middle East, I will be ordering the cessation of sanctions against Syria in order to give them a chance at greatness,’ Trump said from Riyadh when announcing the decision late yesterday.
The meeting between Trump and Al-Sharaa in the Saudi Arabian capital was the first between a US president and a Syrian leader since Bill Clinton met in Geneva in 2000 with the father of the deposed Bashar al-Assad, Hafez al-Assad, in an attempt to convince him to reach a peace agreement with Israel. During Wednesday’s conversation between Erdoğan, Trump, Al-Sharaa and Salman, the Turkish president also called for redoubled efforts to stop the spiral of violence in Gaza.
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Edited and reviewed by:
Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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