US President Donald Trump’s special envoy to Syria said Saturday he met with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa and commended the steps he has taken regarding foreign fighters and relations with Israel.
Thomas Barrack, a special envoy to Syria and the current US ambassador to Turkey, said in a statement that the two met in Istanbul on Saturday, and that he commended Sharaa for “taking meaningful steps” on foreign fighters as well as “relations with Israel.”
The meeting came a day after a report that leaders of Iran-backed Palestinian terror groups in Syria, who were close to former president Bashar al-Assad, left the country under pressure from Sharaa, citing Palestinian sources.
The crackdown did not appear to affect the Syrian presence of Gaza-based Hamas, which is also backed by Iran, nor that of Fatah, the secularist faction that dominates the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority.
The White House had demanded that Sharaa crack down on Palestinian terror groups as a condition for the removal of Washington’s sanctions on Damascus.
There have also been unconfirmed reports that Syria’s new regime has held indirect talks with Israel on potential normalization between the two countries, despite Israeli leaders’ deep suspicion of Sharaa due to his jihadi past.
This handout photograph taken and released by the Turkish Presidential Press Service in Istanbul, Turkey on May 24, 2025, shows Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (R) and Syria’s jihadist-turned-interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa (L) shaking hands during their meeting. (HANDOUT / TURKISH PRESIDENTIAL PRESS SERVICE / AFP)
Sharaa was in Istanbul this weekend for an unannounced meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, according to the Anadolu state news agency.
The two leaders were seen greeting each other outside Erdogan’s office, ahead of a meeting that private Turkish news channel NTV said lasted more than two and a half hours.
The Syrian delegation included its foreign and defense ministers and would “discuss a number of common issues” with the Turkish side, the Syrian presidency said on Telegram.
A man stands outside a building bearing graffiti with the Arabic slogan “We shall return” over a hand holding the key of a lost Palestinian home in what is now Israel, next to a Syrian flag, in the Yarmuk camp for Palestinian refugees in southern Damascus on May 22, 2025. (LOUAI BESHARA / AFP)
Turkey’s foreign and defense ministers, its intelligence chief and the head of the state defense industry agency also took part, according to Anadolu.
The report did not specify what exactly the leaders discussed.
Since Assad’s ouster, the new administration has been looking to build relations with the West and roll back sanctions, but some governments have expressed reluctance, pointing to the Islamist past of leading figures.
Ankara is a firm supporter of Syria’s new Islamist authorities and is seeking to roll back sanctions and rebuild the country’s infrastructure and economy after almost 14 years of civil war.
