Trump to meet Syrian president during Gulf region visit
President Donald Trump was set to meet Syria's president in Saudi Arabia following a surprise announcement that the United States would lift all sanctions on the Islamist-led government despite lingering concerns about its leaders' former ties to al-Qaeda.
Despite concerns within sectors of his administration, Trump said on Tuesday during a speech in Riyadh he would lift sanctions on Syria. The US president has agreed to say hello to interim Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, who will be in Riyadh for meetings with the Gulf Cooperation Council.
Trump's first day of a four-day swing through the Gulf region was marked by lavish ceremony and business deals, including a $US600 billion ($A940 billion) commitment from Saudi Arabia to invest in the US and $US142 billion ($A222 billion) in US arms sales to the kingdom.
Later on Wednesday, Trump will fly to Qatari capital Doha, where he will participate in a state visit with Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani and other officials. Qatar, a key US ally, is expected to announce hundreds of billions of dollars in investments in the US.
US ally Israel has opposed sanctions relief for Syria, but Trump on Tuesday said that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, who are both close to the US president, encouraged him to make the move.
His interactions with Sharaa, a former al-Qaeda commander who led rebel forces that toppled former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in December, will be closely watched as observers gauge how serious Washington is about resetting its relationship with Damascus.
Sharaa renounced ties to al-Qaeda in 2016.
Trump's visit to Doha was to follow the White House's announcement this week that it plans to accept a Boeing 747-8 plane, which would be outfitted to serve as Air Force One, as a gift from the Qataris.
The luxury plane, which would be one of the most valuable gifts ever received by the US government, would eventually be donated to Trump's presidential library. It has sparked outrage from Democrats and bipartisan security concerns. Some officials have said it could create a perception of corruption, even absent a quid pro quo.
While the precise details of the investments Qatar plans to announce on Wednesday were unclear, Qatar Airways was expected to announce a deal to buy around 100 wide-body jets from Boeing, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Following his visit to Qatar, Trump will fly to Abu Dhabi to meet with the UAE's leaders on Thursday. He is then slated to fly back to Washington on Friday, but he has said he could fly to Turkey instead for a potential meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Sky News AU
17 minutes ago
- Sky News AU
Australia must ‘pay the price' for betraying Trump on defence spending
Sky News host Andrew Bolt says Australia must 'pay the price' for slapping Donald Trump around and refusing his demand to spend more on defence. Ties between Canberra and Washington have frayed as the Trump administration launches a review of the AUKUS deal after the Albanese government resisted requests to lift defence spending to 3.5 per cent of GDP. The Albanese government also provoked frustration from the Trump administration after its decision to sanction Israel—a move which the US publicly 'condemned'. 'The US defence department says it's going to review our deal to buy the American nuclear submarines we need – critically need,' Mr Bolt said.
ABC News
23 minutes ago
- ABC News
Trump's America has migrants and green card holders living in fear
Protests in Los Angeles have continued for a sixth day. Overnight, a curfew took hold in the city's downtown area, but it hasn't stopped some people from taking to the streets, outraged by President Donald Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration. North America correspondent Lauren Day reports.
The Advertiser
an hour ago
- The Advertiser
Big step as Iran found in breach of nuclear obligations
The UN nuclear watchdog's 35-nation Board of Governors has declared Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations for the first time in almost 20 years, raising the prospect of reporting it to the UN Security Council. The major step on Thursday is the culmination of several festering stand-offs between the International Atomic Energy Agency and Iran that have arisen since President Donald Trump pulled the US out of a nuclear deal between Tehran and major powers in 2018 during his first term, after which that deal unravelled. Since Iran bristles at resolutions against it and this is the most significant one in years, it is likely to respond with a nuclear escalation, as it has said it will. That could complicate the current talks between Iran and the US aimed at imposing new curbs on Iran's accelerating atomic activities. The resolution also comes at a time of particularly heightened tension, with the US pulling staff out of the Middle East, and Trump warning the region could become dangerous and saying Washington would not let Iran have nuclear weapons. Diplomats at the closed-door meeting said the board passed the resolution submitted by the United States, Britain, France and Germany with 19 countries in favour, 11 abstentions and three states - Russia, China and Burkina Faso - against. The text, seen by Reuters, declares Iran in breach of its obligations given a damning report the IAEA sent to member states on May 31. "The Board of Governors ... finds that Iran's many failures to uphold its obligations since 2019 to provide the Agency with full and timely cooperation regarding undeclared nuclear material and activities at multiple undeclared locations in Iran ... constitutes non-compliance with its obligations under its Safeguards Agreement with the Agency," the text said. A central issue is Iran's failure to provide the IAEA with credible explanations of how uranium traces detected at undeclared sites in Iran came to be there despite the agency having investigated the issue for years. The May 31 IAEA report, a board-mandated "comprehensive" account of developments, found three of the four locations "were part of an undeclared structured nuclear programme carried out by Iran until the early 2000s and that some activities used undeclared nuclear material". US intelligence services and the IAEA have long believed Iran had a secret, co-ordinated nuclear weapons program it halted in 2003, though isolated experiments continued for several years. IAEA director-general Rafael Grossi said this week the findings were broadly consistent with that. Iran denies ever having pursued nuclear weapons. While the resolution alluded to reporting Iran to the UN Security Council, diplomats said it would take a second resolution to send it there, as happened the last time it was declared in non-compliance in September 2005, followed by referral in February 2006. The UN nuclear watchdog's 35-nation Board of Governors has declared Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations for the first time in almost 20 years, raising the prospect of reporting it to the UN Security Council. The major step on Thursday is the culmination of several festering stand-offs between the International Atomic Energy Agency and Iran that have arisen since President Donald Trump pulled the US out of a nuclear deal between Tehran and major powers in 2018 during his first term, after which that deal unravelled. Since Iran bristles at resolutions against it and this is the most significant one in years, it is likely to respond with a nuclear escalation, as it has said it will. That could complicate the current talks between Iran and the US aimed at imposing new curbs on Iran's accelerating atomic activities. The resolution also comes at a time of particularly heightened tension, with the US pulling staff out of the Middle East, and Trump warning the region could become dangerous and saying Washington would not let Iran have nuclear weapons. Diplomats at the closed-door meeting said the board passed the resolution submitted by the United States, Britain, France and Germany with 19 countries in favour, 11 abstentions and three states - Russia, China and Burkina Faso - against. The text, seen by Reuters, declares Iran in breach of its obligations given a damning report the IAEA sent to member states on May 31. "The Board of Governors ... finds that Iran's many failures to uphold its obligations since 2019 to provide the Agency with full and timely cooperation regarding undeclared nuclear material and activities at multiple undeclared locations in Iran ... constitutes non-compliance with its obligations under its Safeguards Agreement with the Agency," the text said. A central issue is Iran's failure to provide the IAEA with credible explanations of how uranium traces detected at undeclared sites in Iran came to be there despite the agency having investigated the issue for years. The May 31 IAEA report, a board-mandated "comprehensive" account of developments, found three of the four locations "were part of an undeclared structured nuclear programme carried out by Iran until the early 2000s and that some activities used undeclared nuclear material". US intelligence services and the IAEA have long believed Iran had a secret, co-ordinated nuclear weapons program it halted in 2003, though isolated experiments continued for several years. IAEA director-general Rafael Grossi said this week the findings were broadly consistent with that. Iran denies ever having pursued nuclear weapons. While the resolution alluded to reporting Iran to the UN Security Council, diplomats said it would take a second resolution to send it there, as happened the last time it was declared in non-compliance in September 2005, followed by referral in February 2006. The UN nuclear watchdog's 35-nation Board of Governors has declared Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations for the first time in almost 20 years, raising the prospect of reporting it to the UN Security Council. The major step on Thursday is the culmination of several festering stand-offs between the International Atomic Energy Agency and Iran that have arisen since President Donald Trump pulled the US out of a nuclear deal between Tehran and major powers in 2018 during his first term, after which that deal unravelled. Since Iran bristles at resolutions against it and this is the most significant one in years, it is likely to respond with a nuclear escalation, as it has said it will. That could complicate the current talks between Iran and the US aimed at imposing new curbs on Iran's accelerating atomic activities. The resolution also comes at a time of particularly heightened tension, with the US pulling staff out of the Middle East, and Trump warning the region could become dangerous and saying Washington would not let Iran have nuclear weapons. Diplomats at the closed-door meeting said the board passed the resolution submitted by the United States, Britain, France and Germany with 19 countries in favour, 11 abstentions and three states - Russia, China and Burkina Faso - against. The text, seen by Reuters, declares Iran in breach of its obligations given a damning report the IAEA sent to member states on May 31. "The Board of Governors ... finds that Iran's many failures to uphold its obligations since 2019 to provide the Agency with full and timely cooperation regarding undeclared nuclear material and activities at multiple undeclared locations in Iran ... constitutes non-compliance with its obligations under its Safeguards Agreement with the Agency," the text said. A central issue is Iran's failure to provide the IAEA with credible explanations of how uranium traces detected at undeclared sites in Iran came to be there despite the agency having investigated the issue for years. The May 31 IAEA report, a board-mandated "comprehensive" account of developments, found three of the four locations "were part of an undeclared structured nuclear programme carried out by Iran until the early 2000s and that some activities used undeclared nuclear material". US intelligence services and the IAEA have long believed Iran had a secret, co-ordinated nuclear weapons program it halted in 2003, though isolated experiments continued for several years. IAEA director-general Rafael Grossi said this week the findings were broadly consistent with that. Iran denies ever having pursued nuclear weapons. While the resolution alluded to reporting Iran to the UN Security Council, diplomats said it would take a second resolution to send it there, as happened the last time it was declared in non-compliance in September 2005, followed by referral in February 2006. The UN nuclear watchdog's 35-nation Board of Governors has declared Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations for the first time in almost 20 years, raising the prospect of reporting it to the UN Security Council. The major step on Thursday is the culmination of several festering stand-offs between the International Atomic Energy Agency and Iran that have arisen since President Donald Trump pulled the US out of a nuclear deal between Tehran and major powers in 2018 during his first term, after which that deal unravelled. Since Iran bristles at resolutions against it and this is the most significant one in years, it is likely to respond with a nuclear escalation, as it has said it will. That could complicate the current talks between Iran and the US aimed at imposing new curbs on Iran's accelerating atomic activities. The resolution also comes at a time of particularly heightened tension, with the US pulling staff out of the Middle East, and Trump warning the region could become dangerous and saying Washington would not let Iran have nuclear weapons. Diplomats at the closed-door meeting said the board passed the resolution submitted by the United States, Britain, France and Germany with 19 countries in favour, 11 abstentions and three states - Russia, China and Burkina Faso - against. The text, seen by Reuters, declares Iran in breach of its obligations given a damning report the IAEA sent to member states on May 31. "The Board of Governors ... finds that Iran's many failures to uphold its obligations since 2019 to provide the Agency with full and timely cooperation regarding undeclared nuclear material and activities at multiple undeclared locations in Iran ... constitutes non-compliance with its obligations under its Safeguards Agreement with the Agency," the text said. A central issue is Iran's failure to provide the IAEA with credible explanations of how uranium traces detected at undeclared sites in Iran came to be there despite the agency having investigated the issue for years. The May 31 IAEA report, a board-mandated "comprehensive" account of developments, found three of the four locations "were part of an undeclared structured nuclear programme carried out by Iran until the early 2000s and that some activities used undeclared nuclear material". US intelligence services and the IAEA have long believed Iran had a secret, co-ordinated nuclear weapons program it halted in 2003, though isolated experiments continued for several years. IAEA director-general Rafael Grossi said this week the findings were broadly consistent with that. Iran denies ever having pursued nuclear weapons. While the resolution alluded to reporting Iran to the UN Security Council, diplomats said it would take a second resolution to send it there, as happened the last time it was declared in non-compliance in September 2005, followed by referral in February 2006.
