Erdogan tells Sharaa Turkey welcomes lifting of Syria sanctions

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(This story has been corrected to show that the five-decade rule was of the Assad family, not Bashar al-Assad, in paragraph 4)

By Daren Butler

ISTANBUL (Reuters) -President Tayyip Erdogan told Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa during talks in Istanbul on Saturday that Turkey welcomed the U.S. and EU decisions to lift sanctions on Syria, the Turkish leader’s office said.

Sharaa’s unscheduled visit came a day after U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration issued orders effectively lifting sanctions on Syria after its 14-year civil war. EU foreign ministers also agreed this week to lift sanctions on Syria.

“Our President told Sharaa … that Turkey welcomed the lifting of sanctions,” his office said in a statement on X.

Ankara has become one of the main foreign allies of Sharaa’s government since rebels – some of them backed for years by Turkey – ousted former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad last year to end his family’s five-decade rule.

Earlier, Turkish broadcasters showed Erdogan shaking hands with Sharaa as he emerged from his car at the Dolmabahce Palace on the shores of the Bosphorus Strait in Turkey’s largest city.

Turkey’s foreign and defence ministers attended the talks, along with the head of the Turkish MIT intelligence agency, the statement said. Their Syrian counterparts also attended, Syrian state news agency SANA said.

Amid the moves to lift sanctions, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack said on Friday he had assumed the role of special envoy to Syria. Reuters reported earlier this week the U.S. planned to appoint him as special envoy.

The move suggests U.S. acknowledgement that Turkey has emerged with key regional influence on Damascus.

MIT chief Ibrahim Kalin and Sharaa held talks earlier this week on the Syrian Kurdish YPG militant group laying down its weapons and integrating into Syrian security forces, a Turkish security source said previously.

Turkey, which still controls swathes of territory in Syria’s north after cross-border operations against the YPG militia, has repeatedly demanded that the YPG disarm and disband.

The YPG spearheads the U.S.-allied SDF forces in Syria, but Turkey regards its as a terrorist group, affiliated with Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants who have fought an 40-year insurgency against Turkey. The PKK announced this month that it had decided to end its armed struggle and disband.

(Reporting by Daren Butler in Istanbu, Huseyin Hayatsever in Ankara and Menna Alaa El Din in Cairo; Editing by Jan Harvey and David Evans)