Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa came home after his visit to the United Nations in New York, which his supporters hailed as “historic”. This was the first time a Syrian leader addressed the annual gathering of world leaders since the late president Noureddin Al-Atassi spoke there in the autumn of 1967. It was not Al-Sharaa’s visit that drew attention so much as his activities on the fringe of the United Nations General Assembly meetings. The Syrian interim president met with former CIA director David Petraeus during the annual Concordia Summit on security and democracy in New York.
“In normal circumstances, these two men would not meet publicly,” said Mohamed Kheir, professor of economics at Damascus University.
Nearly two decades ago in Iraq, Petraeus faced off against Al-Sharaa — then known as Abu Mohamed Al-Julani, a member of Al-Qaeda — during the early years of the US-British occupation of Baghdad. At one time, the CIA offered a $10 million bounty for information on Al-Julani, the leader of Hayaat Tahrir Al-Sham. But after Al-Sharaa came to power in December 2024, the US State Department removed the group from its list of terrorist organisations and withdrew the bounty. At the beginning of their meeting, Petraeus greeted Al-Sharaa in Arabic, saying, “Peace be upon you, Mr President.” Al-Sharaa responded: “At one time, we were in combat, and now we move to dialogue.”
The conversation was marked by laughter and calm exchanges in which Al-Sharaa justified his past affiliation with Al-Qaeda by pointing to the regional circumstances at the time, including the occupation of Iraq and the situation in Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon. “We cannot judge the past based on the rules of today and cannot judge today based on the rules of the past,” Al-Sharaa said. About his time as a leader in Al-Qaeda, Al-Sharaa said, “maybe there were mistakes.” His intentions, however, were “to defend people, rights, and save children and women.” Al-Qaeda is designated a terrorist organisation on dozens of countries’ terror lists.
“The issue is not the president’s intentions, but the actions of the entire regime,” Kheir said. “The Damascus government is currently in conflict with most Syrian factions, which makes it difficult to reach the stage of reconstruction that Al-Sharaa so often speaks of.”
Syria has witnessed sectarian clashes between Sunni government forces and Alawites on the coast, as well as between Sunni Bedouin tribes and Druze communities in the south, leaving thousands dead and tens of thousands displaced. On the other hand Al-Sharaa stated that his country “does not want to enter into battle with Israel,” even though Israeli forces have carried out nearly 400 incursions into Syrian territory, arresting civilians, and striking Syria more than 1,000 times in recent months. He added that his government was working to ease tensions with Israel, arguing that this would give Syria an opportunity to focus on reconstruction. He also noted that Damascus and Tel Aviv had reached “advanced stages of agreement based on the 1974 ceasefire.”
However, Reuters reported that “efforts to reach a security pact between Syria and Israel have hit a last-minute snag,” citing unnamed sources close to the negotiations. Meanwhile, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Tel Aviv was pressing ahead with efforts to reach a security agreement with Syria that safeguards “Israel’s interests,” including the demilitarisation of southwest Syria and guarantees for the security of the Druze.
“It is not clear what exactly the security agreement entails, since there has been no mention of the fate of the Golan Heights,” noted Kheir. “But Syria needs to lift the burden of conflict with Israel off its shoulders.”
Al-Sharaa did raise the issue of the occupied Golan Heights, but the difficulty of regaining it has led many to focus instead on preserving what remains of Syria. During his visit to New York, Al-Sharaa had a brief meeting with US President Donald Trump and a round of talks with his Secretary of State Marco Rubio. According to the Syrian News Agency, Al-Sharaa met Trump during the reception hosted by the latter on the fringe of the 80th session of the UN General Assembly. The agency published photographs the following day showing Al-Sharaa shaking hands with Trump in the presence of First Lady Melania Trump, without providing further details. Reuters reported that this was the second meeting between Al-Sharaa and Trump, following their encounter in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, last May.
Al-Sharaa’s meeting with Rubio focused on issues of terrorism and Damascus’ relations with Tel Aviv, with Washington acting as a mediator between the two. In a statement, the US State Department said that Rubio and Al-Sharaa discussed efforts to locate missing American citizens in Syria, counterterrorism initiatives, and the importance of Syrian-Israeli relations in strengthening regional security.
The Syrian president also met with his close ally, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who himself enjoyed a very cordial meeting with Trump at the White House following the conclusion of the annual UN summit in New York. “Erdoğan solved the problem in Syria… I wanted him to take credit for it,” Trump said referring to the ouster of Bashar Al-Assad’s regime. The Turkish president made no comment on this statement. It is no secret that Erdoğan’s government provided extensive support to extremist jihadi movements during the Civil War against the Al-Assad regime from 2011 until its fall in 2024.
The Syrian Civil War caused deep regional divisions — with Turkey and the Gulf states backing the opposition, while Iran and its allies supported Al-Assad’s rule — and international rifts, as Russia, China, and their allies stood with Al-Assad against a Western bloc aligned with the opposition.
At the UN headquarters, Al-Sharaa also met French President Emmanuel Macron, their second encounter following his visit to Paris in May. In addition, the cameras captured a smiling exchange between Al-Sharaa and the Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani inside the General Assembly hall.
“What Syria lacks is a cohesive popular unity and strong international backing, or what we might call an international partner for development,” Kheir opined. “International presence is of critical importance; we cannot move forward without it. This is precisely what Syria lacked under Al-Assad, when the Western contribution was lacking.”
In a rare event, Al-Sharaa met with delegations from the Syrian diaspora in the United States, stressing that Syrians needed unity. “We may not agree on everything, but we must stand together,” he said. “What we lack is a sound plan and a united front to build the Syria of which we were deprived. The damage is vast in every sector, yet we possess significant capital and a large pool of human resources.”
Commenting on Al-Sharaa’s meeting with the diaspora, Kheir stated that the interim president “wants to present himself as the leader of all Syrians. Of course, we cannot ignore that the meeting was with Al-Assad’s opponents — whether Al-Sharaa himself or the representatives of the diaspora. For this reason, it is still too early to judge the success of that strategy.”
* A version of this article appears in print in the 2 October, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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