فاس نيوز ميديا جريدة الكترونية جهوية تعنى بشؤون و أخبار جهة فاس مكناس – متجددة على مدار الساعة
A high-ranking Saudi delegation met with the new Syrian leader, Ahmad al-Shareh, in Damascus, a source close to the government announced to AFP on Monday.
This meeting, which took place on Sunday, marks the first known official contact between the Saudi government and the new Syrian administration.
It comes two weeks after a rebel coalition led by the radical Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) entered Damascus and announced the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad, following a lightning offensive that allowed them to seize a large part of the country in eleven days.
The Saudi delegation notably discussed “the situation in Syria” and the eradication of illegal trade in “captagon,” an amphetamine derived from a medication, with Ahmad al-Shareh, leader of HTS, according to this source close to the government speaking on condition of anonymity.
Saudi Arabia had called in early December for concerted efforts to prevent Syria from falling into “chaos and division” after Assad’s fall.
Under the former president, Syria had become a narco-state thriving on the illegal trade of captagon, for which Saudi Arabia constitutes a key market.
After years of isolation due to the repression of a popular uprising in 2011 that degenerated into civil war, Bashar al-Assad’s Syria had made its return to the international scene by rejoining the Arab League in May 2023.
Riyadh, which had supported Syrian rebel groups at the beginning of the conflict and closed its embassy in 2012, had subsequently restored its ties with Damascus and reopened its diplomatic mission in the Syrian capital.
HTS, formerly the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda, claims to have broken with jihadism but remains classified as “terrorist” by several Western capitals.
