Syria makes bid to meet Trump, hoping for sanctions relief and reset with Israel

Japan Times

13-05-2025

A Trump Tower in Damascus, a detente with Israel and U.S. access to Syria's oil and gas are part of Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa's strategic pitch to try to get face time with U.S. President Donald Trump during his trip to the Middle East, according to several sources familiar with the push to woo Washington.
Jonathan Bass, an American pro-Trump activist, who on April 30 met Sharaa for four hours in Damascus, along with Syrian activists and Gulf Arab states has been trying to arrange a landmark — if unlikely — meeting between the two leaders this week on the sidelines of Trump's visit to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
Syria has struggled to implement conditions set out by Washington for relief from U.S. sanctions, which keep the country cut off from the global financial system and make economic recovery extremely challenging after 14 years of grinding war.
Signaling a possible shift in Washington's policy, Trump said Monday in response to a query from his Turkish counterpart that he may ease U.S. sanctions.
"We're going to have to make a decision on the sanctions ... We may take them off of Syria, because we want to give them a fresh start," Trump told reporters.
"Many people have asked me about that, because the way we have them sanctioned, it doesn't really give them much of a start. So we want to see we can help them out. So we'll make that determination," he said.
Proponents of more U.S. engagement with Syria hope that getting Trump into a room with Sharaa, who still remains a U.S.-designated terrorist over his al-Qaeda past, could help soften the Republican administration's thinking on Damascus and cool an increasingly tense relationship between Syria and Israel.
Part of the bet for the effort is based on Trump's history of breaking with longstanding U.S. foreign policy taboos, such as when he met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea in 2019.
"Sharaa wants a business deal for the future of his country," Bass said, noting that it could cover energy exploitation, cooperation against Iran and engagement with Israel.
"He told me he wants a Trump Tower in Damascus. He wants peace with his neighbors. What he told me is good for the region, good for Israel," said Bass.
Sharaa also shared what he saw as a personal connection with Trump: both have been shot at, narrowly surviving attempts on their lives, Bass said.
Syrian officials and a presidency media official did not respond to a request for comment.
Sharaa spoke with Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Sunday, according to the Syrian presidency.
A person close to Sharaa said afterwards that a Trump-Sharaa meeting remained possible in Saudi Arabia, but would not confirm whether Sharaa had received an invitation.
"Whether or not the meeting takes place won't be known until the last moment," the person said.
'Push underway'
To be clear, a Trump-Sharaa meeting during the U.S. president's visit to the region is widely seen as unlikely, given Trump's packed schedule, his priorities and lack of consensus within Trump's team on how to tackle Syria.
A source familiar with ongoing efforts said a high-level Syria-U.S. meeting was set to take place in the region during the week of Trump's visit, but that it would not be between Trump and Sharaa.
Syrian interim President Ahmed Sharaa attends an interview at the presidential palace in Damascus, Syria, on March 10. |
REUTERS
"There is definitely a push underway," said Charles Lister, head of the Syria Initiative at the Middle East Institute.
"The idea is that getting to Trump directly is the best avenue because there are just too many ideologues within the administration to get past."
Washington is yet to formulate and articulate a coherent Syria policy, but the administration has increasingly been viewing relations with Damascus from a perspective of counterterrorism, three sources including a U.S. official familiar with the policymaking said.
That approach was illustrated by the make-up of the U.S. delegation in a meeting last month between Washington and Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani in New York, which included a senior counterterrorism official from the State Department, two of the sources said.
U.S. officials conveyed to Shibani that Washington found steps taken by Damascus to be insufficient, particularly on the U.S. demand to remove foreign fighters from senior posts in the army and expel as many of them as possible, the sources said.
The U.S. Treasury has since conveyed its own demands on the Syrian government, bringing the number of conditions to more than a dozen, one of the sources said.
The U.S. State Department declined to disclose who attended the meeting from the U.S. side and said it does not comment on private diplomatic discussions.
White House National Security Council spokesperson James Hewitt said the actions of Syria's interim authorities would determine the future U.S. support or possible sanctions relief.
'Olive branch'
A key aim of Syria's overtures to Washington is communicating that it poses no threat to Israel, which has escalated airstrikes in Syria since the country's rebels-turned rulers ousted former strongman Bashar al-Assad last year.
Israel's ground forces have occupied territory in southwestern Syria while the government has lobbied the U.S. to keep Syria decentralized and isolated.
Israel has said it aims to protect Syrian minority groups. Syria has rejected the strikes as escalatory.
Sharaa last week confirmed indirect negotiations with Israel aimed at calming tensions, after it was reported that such talks had occurred via the UAE.
In a separate effort, Bass said Sharaa told him to pass messages between Syria and Israel that may have led to a direct meeting between Israeli and Syrian officials.
But Israel soon resumed strikes, including one near the presidential palace, which it framed as a message to Syria's rulers to protect the country's Druze minority amid clashes with Sunni militants.
"Sharaa sent the Israelis an olive branch. Israel sent missiles," Bass said. "We need Trump to help sort this relationship out."