Photo: Collected

MANAMA, Nov 2, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - Syria's president will discuss issues 
including lifting remaining sanctions, reconstruction and counter-terrorism 
when he becomes the country's first leader to pay an official visit to 
Washington later this month, the foreign minister said Sunday.

Ahmed al-Sharaa is expected in the US capital in early November, Syria's top 
diplomat Asaad al-Shaibani told a panel at the Manama Dialogue in Bahrain.

"This visit is certainly historic," he said.

"Many topics will be discussed, starting with the lifting of sanctions," 
Shaibani said, adding: "Today we are fighting (the Islamic State)... any 
effort in this regard requires international support."

Discussions will also revolve around reconstruction after more than a decade 
of war, he said.

The foreign ministry in Damascus confirmed the trip would be the first ever 
visit to the White House by a Syrian president.

On Saturday, US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack said Sharaa was heading to 
Washington "hopefully" to sign an agreement to join the international US-led 
alliance against the Islamic State (IS).

Though it will be Sharaa's first visit to Washington, it will be his second 
to the US after a landmark UN trip in September, where the former jihadist 
became the first Syrian president in decades to address the UN General 
Assembly in New York.

In May, the interim leader, whose Islamist forces ousted longtime ruler 
Bashar al-Assad late last year, met US President Donald Trump for the first 
time in Riyadh during a historic visit that led to the US leader vowing to 
lift economic sanctions on Syria.

- Israel talks -

Syria and Israel remain technically at war, but they opened direct 
negotiations after Assad was toppled by an Islamist-led coalition last 
December.

Trump has expressed hope that Syria will join other Arab countries that have 
normalised ties with Israel under the so-called Abraham Accords.

But Shaibani said that "regarding Syria and the Abraham Accords, this is an 
issue that is not being considered and has not been discussed".

A Syrian official had told AFP earlier this year that Syria expects to 
finalise security and military agreements with Israel in 2025, in what would 
be a breakthrough less than a year after Assad's ouster.

Since December, Israel has deployed troops in a UN-patrolled buffer zone that 
separates the countries' forces and has launched hundreds of strikes in 
Syria. Damascus has not retaliated.

"We do not want Syria to enter a new war, and Syria is not currently in a 
position to threaten any party, including Israel," said Shaibani.

He said the negotiations underway were focused on "reaching a security 
agreement that does not undermine the 1974 agreement (cementing a ceasefire 
with Israel) and does not legitimise any new reality that Israel might impose 
in the south".