Fourth Meeting Between Trump and Al-Shara: A New Syrian Role in the Region?

SadaNews - The White House announced that U.S. President Donald Trump will meet with his Syrian counterpart, President Ahmad Al-Shara, on the sidelines of the NATO summit scheduled to be held in the Turkish capital, Ankara, on July 7 and 8, marking the fourth meeting between the two presidents since the restoration of Syrian-American relations after the fall of the Assad regime.

White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly explained during a conference call with reporters yesterday that the talks between the Syrian and American presidents will take place on Wednesday afternoon, according to Agence France-Presse.

A Regional Role Awaiting Syria?

Commenting on the upcoming meeting between Presidents Trump and Al-Shara, researcher Maki, a senior fellow at the Al Jazeera Center for Studies, stated that "this meeting is very important to determine an approach that fulfills Syria's desire to avoid involvement in armed conflict within Lebanon, while simultaneously enabling Syria to play a positive role that confirms its presence in the region as a central country."

Maki further indicated in an interview with "Syria Now" that "President Al-Shara knows that a country like Syria, located in the heart of the Middle East, cannot turn a blind eye to what is happening around it, and it must not overlook anything occurring in the region, because storms will reach it; regional presence in any potentially positive format carries with it the seeds of a larger regional role in the future."

The researcher pointed out that "Syria's fate does not allow it to be a marginal state even if it is a weak one; Syria is a central state, and what happens within it affects its surroundings, thus it must have a role in Lebanon, as it is the only outlet in Lebanon and the only vent for Lebanon in the region."

Integration into Security Structures

For his part, Nicholas Williams, a former NATO official and a former British Ministry of Defense employee, stated that "President Ahmad Al-Shara's visit to Ankara and the arrangement of meetings on the sidelines of the NATO summit, including with Trump, represent a historic shift in Syria's position."

Williams also noted in an interview with "Syria Now" that Al-Shara's visit on the sidelines of the summit in Ankara "reflects a strategic repositioning and increasing integration into Western security structures designed to enhance stability in the Middle East."

This new meeting takes place in the context of evolving American-Syrian relations, as President Trump previously met with Syrian President Ahmad Al-Shara for the first time on May 14, 2025, in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, on the sidelines of the Gulf-American summit, with the presence of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (via video call).

The two presidents also held a second meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September 2025, before Al-Shara visited Washington on November 10, 2025, and met with Trump at the White House, marking the first visit by a Syrian president to Washington since Syria's independence in 1946, occurring just days after Al-Shara's name was removed from American and international terrorism lists.

 

Source: Al Jazeera + Agencies