President Donald Trump met with Syrian President and former Islamist rebel leader Ahmed al-Sharaa during an unplanned meeting in which he urged his counterpart to sign the Abraham Accords recognizing Israel on Wednesday (May 14), the New York Post reports.
Trump and al-Sharaa met at the Gulf Cooperation Council in Riyadh during a conversation in which Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan also phoned in. Syria doesn't currently recognize Israel's statehood and the topic was one of several discussed by the two leaders with Trump also telling al-Sharaa to make all foreign terrorists leave the country, deport Palestinian terrorists, help the U.S. prevent the rise of ISIS and take responsibility for ISIS detention centers located in northeast Syria, according to the White House.
The meeting came one day after Trump lifted sanctions on Syria and the president is now claiming he's interested in possibly normalizing relations with the Middle Eastern country.
“We are currently exploring normalizing relations with Syria’s new government, as you know, beginning with my meeting with President Ahmed al-Sharaa,” Trump said after the Gulf Cooperation Council meeting via NBC News.
Al-Sharaa is a career militant who had previously fought the U.S. while serving as a member of Al Qaeda in Iraq during the early 2000s and founded the terrorist group's Syrian affiliate Nusra Front in 2012. Trump initially landed in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday (May 13) morning and was in Qatar on Wednesday as part of his Middle Eastern tour, his first international appearance during his second of two non-consecutive presidential terms.