DAMASCUS, Syria\u00a0\u2014\u00a0French President Emmanuel Macron arrived Monday in Syria, making him the first major Western leader to visit the war-torn country since the ouster of Bashar Assad in 2024.<\/p>\n
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited in April, but Macron is the first leader from Western Europe or North America to do so.<\/p>\n
The French president\u2019s visit comes during a period of relative calm in the Middle East after the monthlong war in Iran and Lebanon. He will travel next to Ankara, Turkey, for the NATO summit, where Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa is also expected to attend and hold a high-profile meeting with President Trump.<\/p>\n
Syria\u2019s state-run SANA news agency said Macron would visit with a business delegation to discuss regional security as well as business and investment opportunities.<\/p>\n
The French president was greeted at Damascus airport by Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have come to express France\u2019s commitment to the Syrian people. For a sovereign Syria, united in its diversity and at peace with its neighbors,\u201d Macron said in a post on X. \u201cTogether, let us open a new chapter of stability and peace.\u201d<\/p>\n
France supports all those who can \u201ccontribute to build a new Syria\u201d in line with the aspirations expressed since the 2011 Arab Spring, Macron\u2019s office said, referring to a period of widespread uprisings across the Middle East that called for political change and reform.<\/p>\n
Macron will meet with Al-Sharaa at the presidential palace and \u201cengage directly with diverse Syrian people,\u201d his office said.<\/p>\n
The details of Macron\u2019s visit were not disclosed due to security reasons.<\/p>\n
Macron hosted Al-Sharaa in Paris in May 2025, where he urged European and U.S. leaders to lift long-standing sanctions on Damascus. Most of those sanctions had since been lifted.<\/p>\n
Paris supported Syria\u2019s new leadership even at a time where others were skeptical of Al-Sharaa\u2019s Islamist-led rule and former role as the head of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham militant group, previously linked to Al Qaeda. <\/p>\n
Western governments were especially concerned about the treatment and inclusion of women and minorities, and whether Syria\u2019s new government would transition into a more democratic rule.<\/p>\n
Syria has managed to sidestep the region\u2019s recent conflicts, but the country is still battered from 13 years of war that left much of it in ruins, drove millions into poverty, and will cost hundreds of billions of dollars to rebuild. Although Syria has signed memorandums of understanding with states and large companies for large investment projects, they have not yet come to fruition.<\/p>\n
Alsayed and Chehayeb write for the Associated Press. Chehayeb reported from Beirut. AP journalist Sylvie Corbet in Paris contributed to this report. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DAMASCUS, Syria\u00a0\u2014\u00a0French President Emmanuel Macron arrived Monday in Syria, making him the first major Western leader to visit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193236,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[30],"tags":[8031,57467,4432,1376,49,17793,57469,12302,11166,2405,22154,95,11078,21304,57468],"class_list":["post-193235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-syria","tag-al-sharaa","tag-first-major-western-leader","tag-french-president-emmanuel-macron","tag-macron","tag-middle-east","tag-monthlong-war","tag-new-leadership","tag-office","tag-paris","tag-peace","tag-period","tag-syria","tag-syrian-people","tag-visit","tag-war-torn-country"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116874931394778695","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193235\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}