Conspiracy or Transformation? Revisiting Ambassador Ford’s Remarks on Sharaa, Sanctions, and the Fragile Future Ahead - The Syrian Observer

European Council chief congratulates Syria’s president over EU sanctions relief

Ahmed al-Sharaa receives phone call from Antonio Costa - Anadolu Ajansı

Conspiracy or Transformation? Revisiting Ambassador Ford’s Remarks on Sharaa, Sanctions, and the Fragile Future Ahead - The Syrian Observer

In a wide-ranging talk, former U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford traced the astonishing political transformation unfolding in Damascus: from a 14-year civil war and the December 2024 collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime to the rise of Ahmed al-Sharaa—a former jihadist commander now serving as Syria’s transitional president. Ford began by recounting the surprising turn in 2023, when a UK-based NGO approached him to help explore whether Sharaa,…

A former jihadist leader, Syrian leader Ahmed al-Charaa, has been trying to show a respectable face to the international community. Among the compromising testimonies of his sulphurous past, an interview of 2021 has just been exhumed on social networks.