President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa during talks in Istanbul on Saturday that Türkiye welcomed the US and EU decisions to lift sanctions on Syria, the Turkish leader's office said.
Sharaa's unscheduled visit came a day after US 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 Türkiye 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 opposition groups, some of them backed for years by Türkiye, 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 Türkiye’s largest city.
Türkiye’s foreign and defense 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 US ambassador to Türkiye Tom Barrack said on Friday he had assumed the role of special envoy to Syria. Reuters reported earlier this week the US planned to appoint him as special envoy.
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.
Türkiye, which still controls swathes of territory in Syria's north after cross-border operations against the YPG, has repeatedly demanded that the YPG disarm and disband.
The YPG spearheads the US-allied SDF forces in Syria, but Türkiye regards it as a terrorist group, affiliated with Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants who have fought a 40-year insurgency against Türkiye. The PKK announced this month that it had decided to end its armed struggle and disband.
