US Lifts Sanctions on Syria: Asks Syria to Normalise Relations with Israel

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He also asked him to expel members of Palestinian armed groups and to take “responsibility” for prisons holding members of the Islamic State group in Syria, currently being held by Kurdish forces.

US President Donald Trump met with Syrian Islamist President Ahmad al-Sharaa in Riyadh on Wednesday, May 14, 2025, and asked him to normalise relations with Israel after announcing a dramatic lifting of sanctions against Damascus.

The meeting, the first between the presidents of the two countries in 25 years and initially announced as brief and informal by Washington, lasted nearly thirty minutes, in the presence of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who joined the conversation virtually.

The US president called on the new Syrian leader, who came to power at the head of a coalition of Islamist forces that overthrew Bashar al-Assad, to rejoin the Abraham Accords, through which several Arab countries recognised Israel in 2020, according to a report released by the White House.

He also asked him to expel members of Palestinian armed groups and to take “responsibility” for prisons holding members of the Islamic State group in Syria, currently being held by Kurdish forces.

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Syrian diplomacy, for its part, reported a “historic meeting,” stating that it had discussed the lifting of sanctions against Syria, announced the day before by the American president, and the fight against terrorism and “non-state actors and armed groups,” without defining relations with Israel.