Syria's Sharaa meets Saudi Crown Prince in Riyadh on first foreign trip

Syria’s transitional president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, met Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh on Sunday in his first foreign trip as Syrian leader, in a sign of the major shifts under way in regional alliances.

Sharaa assumed power as transitional president last week, after leading a rebel campaign that ousted longtime Iran-backed leader Bashar al-Assad, whose ties with the rest of the Arab world were strained throughout the nearly 14-year Syrian war.

Sharaa said in a written statement that he had discussed humanitarian and economic cooperation with the Crown Prince, as well as “extensive future plans in the fields of energy, technology, education and health”.

A statement by the Saudi state news agency said the pair had discussed improving bilateral ties and regional developments.

Sharaa, who was born in Saudi Arabia and spent part of his childhood there, was expected to remain in the kingdom on Monday to visit the Muslim holy city of Mecca.

Sharaa and other new Syrian officials have sought to strengthen ties with Arab and Western leaders since Assad’s fall. Saudi Arabia has played a leading role in that effort, hosting Syria’s new foreign and defence ministers in early January and a meeting of Syrian, Arab and Western officials later that month.

Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani was the first head of state to visit the Syrian capital after Assad was ousted in December.

The warming ties with Arab leaders represent a major shift away from the situation under Assad, whose brutal crackdown on protests against him in 2011 led to the Arab League suspending Syria’s membership for more than a decade.

Saudi Arabia tried to end Assad’s isolation by welcoming him back into the Arab League in 2023, hoping his reintegration would encourage him to address their concerns, chiefly the need to curb the trade in captagon, an amphetamine-like drug used in the Gulf by partygoers and labourers alike.

Syria had become the region’s main producer of the drug, according to regional security sources, but Assad always denied his government played a role in its production and sale and Arab countries saw little progress to address the issue under him.

Syria’s new administration has repeatedly pledged to clamp down on the production and trade of the drug.