President Donald Trump welcomed Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa after lifting sanctions imposed on Syria, which had been a pariah state for decades before rebel forces toppled Syrian President Bashar Assad last December.
Al-Sharaa — who once had ties to al-Qaida and had a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head — was named interim leader in January.
Trump and al-Sharaa first met in May in Saudi Arabia. Now, Al-Sharaa has become the first Syrian head of state to visit the White House since the Middle Eastern country gained independence from France in 1946.
His priorities include securing a permanent repeal of sanctions that punished Syria for widespread allegations of human rights abuses by Assad's government and security forces.
The Trump administration also returned to the Supreme Court on Monday in a push to keep full payments in the SNAP federal food aid program frozen during the U.S. government shutdown, leaving in limbo the federal aid that helps 42 million poor Americans buy groceries.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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