Washington ~ In a stunning diplomatic reversal, President Trump laid out a red carpet for ex-al-Qaida rebel-turned-Syrian president Ahmad al-Sharaa, sealing Syria’s reentry into the Western fold for the first time since 1946. The visit caps a dramatic turnaround for Damascus less than a year after the fall of Bashar Assad and the lifting of decades-old U.S. sanctions.

It’s the first visit to the White House by a Syrian head of state since the Middle Eastern country gained independence from France in 1946 and comes after the US lifted sanctions imposed on Syria during the decades the country remained in the resistance camp led by Iran. Al-Sharaa led the rebel forces that toppled former President Bashar Assad last December and was named the country’s interim leader in January.

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