President Donald Trump said he'll lift US sanctions against Syria following the toppling of former President Bashar al-Assad, a boost to the war-ravaged country's ambitions of rejoining the international community.  

"I will be ordering the cessation of sanctions against Syria in order to give them a chance at greatness," Trump said in an address to a Saudi-US investment summit in Riyadh on Tuesday. "It's their time to shine."

The US leader will go on to briefly meet Syria's new president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, in the Saudi capital on Wednesday, a White House official said earlier. 

The lifting of US sanctions will come as a significant boost for Sharaa, whose rebel group overthrew Assad's regime in a December uprising. He's presenting his administration as a fresh start for Syria after more than a decade of war, which led to the global isolation of Assad and devastated the country's economy. 

Syria's Foreign Minister Asaad Al-Shaibani described Trump's comments as a "turning point" for the Syrian people.

"We think of this announcement extremely positively," he told Syrian state-run news agency Sana. "President Trump can achieve an historic peace agreement and a real victory for the US's interests in Syria."

Trump credited recent discussions with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for persuading him to make the move. 

"Oh, what I do for the crown prince," he said, while looking at Saudi Arabia's de-facto leader, the host of Trump's first scheduled foreign trip of his second term. 

Trump is visiting Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates this week. While he's keen for them to invest billions of dollars in the US, he also wants to tout his peace-making credentials and ability to stabilize the region's conflicts.

"For the first time in a thousand years, the world will look at this region not as a place of turmoil and strife and war and death, but as a land of opportunity and hope," Trump said, expressing a wish to resolve the conflict between Israel and Hamas and tame long-time US adversary Iran. 

Saudi Arabia had pushed for the US to cut sanctions in a bid to rebuild Syria, and ensure it remains in the Arab orbit after Iran lost its influence with the downfall of Assad, an ally of Tehran. Russia had previously helped to prop up the former Syrian president, who fled to Moscow after his shock ouster.  

Influential Syrian Americans have lobbied the US government and figures close to Trump to support the Sharaa-led transition.

Yet Sharaa's past as an al-Qaeda-affiliated commander and the presence of extreme Islamists among his followers have made Washington and the likes of Israel wary of the new administration.

Sharaa's quest took a setback when hundreds of minority Alawites were killed by government loyalists in vigilante attacks earlier this year. The Druze community called for international assistance following clashes with government forces in recent weeks, drawing military intervention from Israel.

Still, the meeting with Trump will follow Sharaa's visit last week to see French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris. That was the Syrian leader's first trip outside the Middle East since he became president and a sign of how Western nations are keen to support his government.

Source : Bloomberg