Syrian interim President Sharaa meets Saudi Crown Prince in Riyadh

Syria’s transitional President Ahmed al-Sharaa met Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh on Sunday, Saudi state news agency SPA reported.

Live TV footage showed Sharaa shaking hands with the crown prince in the Saudi capital before sitting down for talks. The Syrian leader was accompanied on his visit by foreign minister, Asaad Hassan al-Shibani.

Sharaa is in Saudi Arabia for his first international visit since the toppling of Bashar al-Assad, his office said.

The presidency posted a picture on X of Sharaa and his foreign minister aboard what appeared to be a private jet with the caption “President Sharaa and Asaad al-Shaibani travel to Saudi Arabia, first official visit”.

Sharaa, whose Islamist group led the overthrow of Assad in December, was named interim president on Wednesday.

Saudi Arabia’s King Salman and his son, the country’s facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, were among the first to congratulate Sharaa on his official appointment.

‘Strategic service’

Rabha Seif Allam, a regional expert at the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo, said Riyadh was “playing a key role in reintegrating the new Syria into the Arab world and onto the international stage”.

She said that Saudi Arabia, the Arab world’s largest economy, would “directly benefit” from the stabilisation of Syria.

“Iran is now excluded from the Syrian landscape, weakening its regional influence, and drug trafficking from Syria to the Gulf countries, which had been a destabilising factor, is now a thing of the past.” Distancing Damascus from Tehran was a “strategic service” to Riyadh, she added.

Though Saudi Arabia and Iran ended a seven-year diplomatic freeze in 2023, the regional heavyweights remain at odds over multiple geopolitical issues, including the civil war in Syria, where they backed opposing sides.

Syria is also pressing for the lifting of international sanctions that have dragged down its economy.

The sanctions date back to 1979, when the United States labelled Syria a “state sponsor of terrorism”, but they were ramped up significantly by Washington and other Western powers when Assad cracked down on anti-government protests in 2011 and sparked the civil war.

The Syrian authorities are counting on wealthy Gulf countries to finance the reconstruction of their war-ravaged nation and revive its economy.

On Thursday, Damascus received Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, who “stressed the urgent need to form a government representing all spectrums” of Syrian society in order “to consolidate stability and move forward with reconstruction, development and prosperity projects”.

According to Damascus, the two sides discussed reconstruction.

The new Syrian authorities have received a steady stream of diplomatic visitors since toppling Assad in December.