Syria's Sharaa holds historic Trump talks

Syria's President Ahmed al-Sharaa met US President Donald Trump at the White House on Monday for unprecedented talks, just days after Washington removed him from a terrorism blacklist.

Sharaa is the first Syrian leader to visit the White House since the country's 1946 independence.

Formerly affiliated with Al-Qaeda, Sharaa's group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), was itself only delisted as a terrorist group by Washington in July. Sharaa himself was taken off the list on Friday.

"The president of Syria arrived at the White House... The meeting between President Trump and President al-Sharaa has also started," the White House said in a statement.

Unusually for the normally camera-friendly Trump, both the arrival and the meeting of the Syrian president were taking place behind closed doors without the media present.

Trump said last week that Sharaa was doing a "very good job. It's a tough neighborhood. And he's a tough guy. But I got along with them very well and a lot of progress has been made with Syria."

Since taking power, Syria's new leaders have sought to break from their violent past and present a more moderate image to ordinary Syrians and foreign powers.

Sharaa's White House visit is "a hugely symbolic moment for the country's new leader, who thus marks another step in his astonishing transformation from militant leader to global statesman," said Michael Hanna, US program director at the International Crisis Group.

The interim president met Trump for the first time in Saudi Arabia during the US leader's regional tour in May. At the time the 79-year-old Trump dubbed Sharaa, 43, a "a young, attractive guy."

The US envoy to Syria, Tom Barrack, said earlier this month that Sharaa may on Monday sign an agreement to join the international US-led alliance against the Islamic State (IS) group.

The United States plans to establish a military base near Damascus "to coordinate humanitarian aid and observe developments between Syria and Israel," a diplomatic source in Syria told AFP.

Washington has also been pushing for some kind of pact to end decades of enmity between Syria and Israel, part of Trump's wider goal to shore up the fragile Gaza ceasefire with a broader Middle East peace settlement.