{"id":222163,"date":"2026-07-25T11:28:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T11:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/222163\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T11:28:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T11:28:10","slug":"un-chief-urges-international-community-to-back-syrians-during-visit-to-damascus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/222163\/","title":{"rendered":"UN chief urges international community to back Syrians during visit to Damascus"},"content":{"rendered":"

DAMASCUS, Syria — U.N. Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres appealed to the international community Saturday to support the people in Syria<\/a> at the start of his first visit to the Arab country as U.N. chief, nearly two years after the fall of Bashar Assad.<\/p>\n

Guterres ‘ visit is the first by a UN secretary-general to the Syrian capital since 2009.<\/p>\n

Shortly after his arrival, Guterres held talks with Syria\u2019s interim president, Ahmad al-Sharaa, before taking a tour of the old quarter of Damascus and the famous Umayyad Mosque.<\/p>\n

Guterres\u2019 visit to Syria comes as the country is trying to recover from the deadly conflict that broke out in March 2011 leaving nearly half a million people dead and causing widespread destruction that would cost tens of billions of dollars to rebuild.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have just arrived in Damascus for a visit of solidarity,\u201d Guterres posted on X at the start of his three-day visit. He added that the United Nations stands with Syria at this \u201cpivotal moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI appeal to the international community to spare no effort to support the people of Syria as well,\u201d the U.N. chief wrote.<\/p>\n

Since the five-decade Assad family rule<\/a> came to an end in December 2024, when fighters led by gunmen loyal to al-Sharaa stormed Damascus, the nation has been struggling to recover from years of conflict and the effects of crippling Western sanctions.<\/p>\n

While the United States and Europe have lifted many of the sanctions imposed during the rule of the Assad dynasty, the impact on the ground has so far been limited.<\/p>\n

Cuts to international aid have worsened living conditions for many. The United Nations estimates that 90% of Syria\u2019s population lives in poverty.<\/p>\n

The World Bank released an assessment last year that said rebuilding Syria after over a decade of civil war is expected to cost about $216 billion<\/a>.<\/p>\n

During his stay in Syria, Guterres is scheduled to visit the U.N. force deployed along the border with Israel.<\/p>\n

After taking power, al-Sharaa said that he had no desire for a conflict with Israel<\/a>. But Israel was suspicious of the new Islamist-led leadership and quickly moved<\/a> to take control of the buffer zone.<\/p>\n

Israel has launched hundreds of airstrikes on Syrian military facilities and periodic incursions into villages outside the buffer zone, which have sometimes led to violent confrontations with residents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DAMASCUS, Syria — U.N. Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres appealed to the international community Saturday to support the people in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":222164,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[30],"tags":[2371,197,768,81,26880,2445,95,200,82],"class_list":["post-222163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-syria","tag-2024-2026-mideast-wars","tag-general-news","tag-military-and-defense","tag-politics","tag-poverty","tag-sanctions-and-embargoes","tag-syria","tag-war-and-unrest","tag-world-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116980383816383173","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222163","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=222163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}