{"id":222008,"date":"2026-07-25T07:42:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T07:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/222008\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T07:42:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T07:42:08","slug":"guterres-arrives-in-syria-in-first-official-visit-by-a-un-chief-in-17-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/222008\/","title":{"rendered":"Guterres arrives in Syria in first official visit by a UN chief in 17 years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has landed in Syria, marking the first official visit by a serving UN chief in 17 years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Guterres arrived on Saturday morning at Damascus international airport, where he and his delegation were met by Syria&#8217;s Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani, Syria&#8217;s state news agency reported.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">During the trip, Guterres will meet President Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former al-Qaeda commander who was under UN Security Council sanctions until last year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The UN chief&#8217;s visit is a first since 2009, before the country&#8217;s bloody 14-year civil war broke out. It is yet another diplomatic milestone for al-Sharaa, who has <a data-ylk=\"slk:sought to rebuild international ties;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;link&quot;,&quot;yLinkElementType&quot;:&quot;article_link&quot;}\" href=\"http:\/\/6\/5\/11\/eu-agrees-to-restore-full-trade-ties-with-syria\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">sought to rebuild international ties<\/a> since he took power after the 2024 ouster of Syria&#8217;s longtime leader Bashar al-Assad.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Guterres will also hold talks with al-Shaibani, other government officials and representatives of Syrian civil society.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The visit will include a field tour to inspect the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF), stationed in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, as part of efforts to monitor commitments under the ceasefire agreement with Israel.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Stable, more inclusive Syria&#8217;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said Guterres plans to highlight that Syria has an opportunity to &#8220;not only to recover from conflict, but also to lay the foundations for a future for Syria that will be more stable, more inclusive, and more prosperous for all Syrians&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Guterres is expected to be in Damascus for several days, but the full schedule of his visit has not been released by his office. He is expected to address Syria&#8217;s new parliament on Monday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The visit also comes just weeks after two bombs exploded near a hotel in Damascus where French President Emmanuel Macron spent the night, overshadowing the first visit to Syria by a European Union head of state since al-Assad was toppled.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Syrian authorities have said they have uncovered the cell responsible for the bombings, arresting suspects affiliated with the ISIL (ISIS) group.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has landed in Syria, marking the first official visit by a serving UN&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":222009,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[30],"tags":[672,9101,23137,19239,44954,21814,95,6170],"class_list":["post-222008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-syria","tag-ahmed-al-sharaa","tag-antonio-guterres","tag-damascus-international-airport","tag-official-visit","tag-secretary-general","tag-stephane-dujarric","tag-syria","tag-un-security-council"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116979495236247288","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222008","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=222008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}