Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa is the first leader to visit United Nation’s General Assembly in six decades.

Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa has arrived in New York for the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), becoming the first Syrian head of state to attend the annual gathering in almost six decades. The last Syrian leader to attend the UNGA was President Nureddin al-Atassi in 1967, who ruled before the al-Assad family came to power in 1971 and maintained its rule until al-Sharaa toppled Bashar al-Assad’s government in December.

The symbolism of the visit was also significant because it is the latest milestone in the normalisation of al-Sharaa and his government, who seized power in the country in a lightning offensive after spending more than a decade as a rebel fighter in northern Syria.

Al-Sharaa had a meeting with United States President Donald Trump in May, the first such encounter between a Syrian president and a US president in 25 years, at a summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council, alongside Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. At the meeting, Trump said the US would drop all sanctions on Syria, which he subsequently did, and added that Washington was “exploring normalising relations with Syria’s new government”.

Al-Sharaa’s fledgling government has been contending with internal strife, notably an eruption of violence in the southern area of Suwayda in June, as well repeated Israeli attacks and military incursions into Syrian territory despite talks between the two nations. Syria has accused Israel of violating the 1974 Disengagement Agreement that followed their 1973 war, by establishing intelligence facilities and military posts in demilitarised areas to advance its “expansionist and partition plans”.

In an interview, al-Sharaa said “President Trump took a big step towards Syria by lifting the sanctions with a quick, courageous and historic decision. He recognised that Syria should be safe, stable and unified. This is in the greatest interest of all the countries in the world, not just Syria”, he added, saying he hoped to have another meeting with Trump while in the US.

At the end of June, Trump signed an executive order “terminating” most remaining sanctions on Syria, which was welcomed in Damascus as unlocking “long-awaited reconstruction and development” funds.

After arriving in the US, al-Sharaa met members of the Syrian community. Syria’s Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani also raised the country’s new flag over the Washington embassy.

Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa, also known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Julani, is a Syrian politician and former rebel commander serving as the president of Syria since 2025. He previously served as the country’s de facto leader from December 2024 until his appointment as president.

Al-Sharaa had joined Al-Qaeda in Iraq shortly before the 2003 invasion of Iraq and fought for three years in the Iraqi insurgency. American forces captured and imprisoned him from 2006 to 2011. His release coincided with the Syrian Revolution against the Ba’athist dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad. Al-Sharaa created the al-Nusra Front in 2012 with the support of al-Qaeda to topple the Assad regime in the Syrian civil war. As emir of the al-Nusra Front, al-Sharaa built a stronghold in the northwestern Idlib Governorate. He resisted Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s attempts to merge al-Nusra Front with the Islamic State, leading to armed conflict between the two groups. In 2016, al-Sharaa cut al-Nusra’s ties with al-Qaeda and launched a crackdown on its loyalists. Since breaking with al-Qaeda, he has sought international legitimacy by presenting a more moderate view of himself, renouncing transnational jihadism against Western nations, and focusing on governance in Syria while vowing to protect Syria’s minorities.

Al-Sharaa merged al-Nusra with other organizations to form Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in 2017, and served as its emir from 2017 to 2025. HTS established a technocratic administration known as the Syrian Salvation Government (SSG) in the territory it controlled in Idlib Governorate. The SSG collected taxes, provided public services, and issued identity cards to residents, though it faced protests and criticism within Idlib for authoritarian tactics and suppressing dissent. Al-Sharaa launched an 11-day offensive against the Assad regime in November 2024 which saw swift victories in Aleppo, Hama, Homs, and Damascus. Israel invaded southwestern Syria from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on 8 December 2024 as Bashar al-Assad fled to Russia, while al-Sharaa reaffirmed Syria’s commitment to the 1974 Disengagement Agreement that ended the Yom Kippur War.

It is a stunning transformation for a man who had a $10 million U.S. bounty put on his head in 2018 due to his past associations with al-Qaida and the Islamic State, though he has since renounced those ties. The bounty was lifted in December, and President Donald Trump subsequently met with al-Sharra and took a series of steps to normalize relations with his government, including the lifting of U.S. sanctions on Syria and the revocation of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s designation as a terrorist group.

Team Maverick