{"id":240897,"date":"2025-07-05T20:00:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-05T20:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/240897\/"},"modified":"2025-07-05T20:00:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-05T20:00:10","slug":"uk-foreign-minister-visits-syria-re-establishes-ties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/240897\/","title":{"rendered":"UK foreign minister visits Syria, re-establishes ties"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa has received UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy in Damascus, marking the first visit by a senior United Kingdom official to Syria since diplomatic ties were severed more than a decade ago.<\/p>\n<p>According to a statement from the Syrian presidency, the meeting was attended by Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani and focused on bilateral relations and ways to strengthen co-operation between the two countries.<\/p>\n<p>The discussions also touched on regional and international developments.<\/p>\n<p>European countries have been slowly resetting their approach to Syria since insurgent forces led by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham ousted Bashar al-Assad as president in December following more than 13 years of war.<\/p>\n<blockquote placeholder=\"\" data-theme=\"light\" class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p>Today in Damascus I met with President Al-Sharaa and FM <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AsaadHShaibani?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:@AsaadHShaibani;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">@AsaadHShaibani<\/a>. I welcomed progress made and stressed the need for an inclusive and representative political transition.<\/p>\n<p>The UK stands ready to support the new Syrian Government. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/uKGDwIcJdT\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:pic.twitter.com\/uKGDwIcJdT;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">pic.twitter.com\/uKGDwIcJdT<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 David Lammy (@DavidLammy) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DavidLammy\/status\/1941524015237226750?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:July 5, 2025;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">July 5, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>In a separate session, Foreign Minister al-Shibani held an extended meeting with Lammy to discuss enhancing political dialogue and co-operation across various areas of mutual interest.<\/p>\n<p>Lammy discussed discuss bilateral co-operation, political transition and regional security and emphasised UK support for Syria&#8217;s reconstruction, inclusive governance and justice for victims of the former regime, according to a statement issued by the UK Foreign Office.<\/p>\n<p>The UK also announced new funding, including \u00a32 million ($A4.2 million) to support the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in eliminating any remaining chemical weapons in Syria.<\/p>\n<p>The UK also pledged \u00a394.5 million in humanitarian and development aid to support Syrian livelihoods, education and countries hosting Syrian refugees.<\/p>\n<p>Lammy also met with Syrian Civil Defence (White Helmets) teams and women-led businesses supported by UK aid programs.<\/p>\n<p>A stable Syria is in the UK&#8217;s interest, he said.<\/p>\n<p>The UK suspended its diplomatic relations with Syria in mid-2012 following the escalation of anti-government protests and civil unrest.<\/p>\n<p>with Reuters<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa has received UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy in Damascus, marking the first visit by&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240898,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[748,6217,18815,393,14017,4884,1144,712,6500,93731,93730,16,67939,14297,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-240897","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"category-united-kingdom","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-david-lammy","11":"tag-diplomatic-ties","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-european-countries","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-northern-ireland","16":"tag-scotland","17":"tag-syria","18":"tag-syrian-presidency","19":"tag-syrian-president","20":"tag-uk","21":"tag-uk-foreign-office","22":"tag-uk-foreign-secretary","23":"tag-united-kingdom","24":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114802408993078969","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}