US President Donald Trump will host Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa for talks, a first-ever visit by a Syrian president to the White House, an administration official said Saturday, as US Special Envoy to Syria Tom Barrack confirmed on the record that Sharaa would visit Washington, DC.

The Trump administration official said that the meeting was expected to take place on November 10.

A Syrian source familiar with the matter said the visit was expected to take place within the next two weeks.

During the visit, Syria will “hopefully” join the US-led coalition to defeat the Islamic State group, known as ISIS, Barrack told reporters on the sidelines of the Manama Dialogue in Bahrain, an annual global security and geopolitical conference.

Trump met with Sharaa in Saudi Arabia in May in what was the first encounter between the two nations’ leaders in 25 years — since Hafez Assad met Bill Clinton in Geneva in 2000. Syria continues to struggle to emerge from decades of international isolation.

The meeting, on the sidelines of Trump’s get-together with the leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council, was seen as a major turn of events for a Syria that is still adjusting to life after the over 50-year, iron-gripped rule of the Assad family.

Syria — whose longtime dictator, Bashar al-Assad, was deposed last year — is also in the midst of talks with Israel over a possible diplomatic accord, talks Barrack said were........

© The Times of Israel