Syrian president receives invitation to US mid-June: diplomatic source

DAMASCUS: Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa received an invitation to head to the United States later this month, where he met his counterpart Donald Trump last November, a diplomatic source told AFP on Thursday.
The invitation comes after Trump had recently hinted at Syria’s willingness to intervene against Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon.
“President Sharaa received an invitation to head to the United States on June 14,” the source said, requesting anonymity, without confirming whether the Syrian leader will go.
Trump’s 80th birthday falls that day and he will be hosting a cage fight on the White House lawn.
Sharaa, a jihadist-turned-statesman who took over after toppling longtime Syrian ruler Bashar Assad in 2024, was received by Trump in November.
It was the first visit of its kind by a Syrian head of state since the country’s independence in 1946.
The two countries have been mending their ties since Assad’s overthrow, with Washington lifting sanctions on Syria and Damascus joining the global coalition against the Daesh group.
Trump had told NBC last week that Sharaa was willing to help against Hezbollah, which has been fighting a war with Israel since March 2 as part of the broader Middle East conflict.
“I’d like to see a more surgical attack on Hezbollah. I think it should be more surgical. And we can help them with that, or we can recommend Syria,” he said.
“Syria’s doing a very good job of cleaning up their act. They have a very good leader. They have a leader that’s really done a good job in a short period of time. And he would love to help.”
According to a diplomat who requested anonymity, Washington has been exerting pressure on Syria since the start of the Israel-Hezbollah war to intervene against the Iran-backed group in Lebanon, with which the country shares a long porous border.
Syria, which under the Assad family was a close ally of Hezbollah, dominated Lebanon for decades following a military intervention in the latter’s 1975-1990 civil war, withdrawing only in 2005, making any new military involvement a fraught proposition.
Hezbollah fought alongside the Syrian government in that country’s own civil war, making the new authorities in Damascus deeply hostile to it.