US President Donald Trump, sitting next to Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa at the NATO summit in Turkiye, said Wednesday that he will remove Syria from the State Department's State Sponsors of Terrorism list.
Axar.az informs that Secretary of State Marco Rubio notified Congress of the long-expected move, which will be effective in 45 days unless lawmakers take the unlikely step of blocking it.
"He's done a great job. Maybe he would have brought that up. That's a good question. Yeah, any problems with that? I think we should. Yeah, I will," Trump said of al-Sharaa when asked about removing Syria from the list.
Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan Al-Shaibani welcomed the US move, commenting on social media "we have closed a dark chapter in Syria's history with the lifting of the designation imposed on the country in 1979 because of the policies of the former regime."
"My sincere thanks and appreciation to the United States, under the leadership of President Trump, for this decision, and to my friend Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Ambassador Tom Barrack, and everyone who stood by Syria," he wrote on X.