The EU's envoy to Syria headed to Damascus Monday to hold talks with the country's new rulers, just over a week after president Bashar al-Assad's ouster ended decades of brutal rule and civil war.
The move from Brussels came after the United States and Britain said they had made contact with the new authorities in the Syrian capital.
After facing down a democracy revolt in 2011 with a crackdown that sparked 13 years of civil war, Assad fled after a rebel offensive brought his rule to a stunning end.
The end of five decades of rule by the Assad clan sparked celebrations across Syria and beyond, with governments around the world also welcoming its downfall.
Governments are carefully calibrating their response to the new reality, especially in countries where the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group that is now in charge remains proscribed as a "terrorist" organization, according to AFP.
HTS is rooted in Syria's branch of Al-Qaeda, but since toppling Assad has sought to moderate its tone, vowing to protect members of all religious communities in the multi-confessional, multi-ethnic country.
"Our top diplomat in Syria will go to Damascus today. We'll have the contacts there," EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Monday.
"We can't leave a vacuum," she said, adding: "For us, it's not only the words, but we want to see the deeds going to the right direction. So not only what they are saying, but also what they are doing."
The UN envoy to Syria, Geir Pedersen, told HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani Syria must have a "credible and inclusive" transition, according to a statement on Monday.
Pedersen also met interim prime minister Mohammad al-Bashir, and underlined "the intention of the United Nations to render all assistance to the Syrian people".
To the victims of some of Assad's worst atrocities, the end of his era brought a glimmer of hope that they might find closure.
As HTS and its allies advanced through Syria, taking city after city, they opened prison gates to liberate people suspected of dissent who had been held for days, months, years and even decades.
"We want our children, alive, dead, burned, ashes, buried in mass graves... just tell us," Ayoush Hassan, 66, told AFP at Saydnaya, one of the prisons Assad used to strike fear into Syrian society.
She travelled to the prison in Damascus from her home in northern Syria, but could find no trace of her missing son.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, more than 100,000 people died in Syria's jails and detention centers from 2011.
