United States President Donald Trump has held talks with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa at the White House, as the Department of the Treasury announced suspending sanctions against Damascus for a further six months.

The meeting on Monday capped a stunning year for al-Sharaa, a 43-year-old former al-Qaeda commander who toppled the longtime hardline leader of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, last December.

Al-Sharaa, who wants to unify his war-ravaged nation and end its decades of international isolation, was the first ever Syrian leader to visit the White House since the country’s independence in 1946.

The Syrian presidency said al-Sharaa and Trump held talks “focusing on bilateral relations between Syria and the United States, ways to strengthen and develop them, and a number of regional and international issues of common interest”.

For his part, Trump heaped praise on al-Sharaa after the meeting.

“He comes from a very tough place, and he’s a tough guy. I like him,” Trump said of the Syrian president.

“We’ll do everything we can to make Syria successful, because that’s part of the Middle East. We have peace now in the Middle East – the first time that anyone can remember that ever happening.”

But Trump also gave a nod to al-Sharaa’s controversial past. “We’ve all had rough pasts,” he said.

Al-Sharaa later told Fox News that his association with al-Qaeda was a matter of the past and was not discussed during his meeting with Trump. Syria is now seen as a geopolitical ally of Washington and not a threat, he added.

‘Muted welcome’

The meeting between the two leaders came six months after their first meeting in Saudi Arabia, where Trump announced plans to lift sanctions, and just days after the US said that al-Sharaa was no longer a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist”.

Al-Sharaa, who was captured by US forces in Iraq during Washington’s occupation of the country, later led al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria.

His group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, split from al-Qaeda in 2016. But the US, less than a year ago, had a $10m reward for information leading to al-Sharaa’s arrest.

Since removing al-Assad, al-Sharaa has further reinvented his image, dropping the name he was also known as, Abu Mohammed al-Julani, for his birth name and promoting a tolerant and inclusive Syria. The interim leader addressed the United Nations General Assembly earlier this year, saying that his country is “reclaiming its rightful place among the nations of the world” and has sought to strengthen economic ties with the US and the European Union.

Still, al-Sharaa received a muted welcome at the White House on Monday. He entered the White House through a side door and was not greeted by Trump outside. And there was no photo opportunity in front of the press or joint news conference between the two leaders.

As al-Sharaa left the compound, he exited his motorcade just in front of the White House and briefly greeted a cheering crowd of supporters, some waving Syrian flags.

Shortly afterwards, a senior US official told The Associated Press and AFP news agencies that Syria has formally confirmed that it would join the global coalition against the armed group ISIL (ISIS), becoming its 90th member.

The official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the US would also allow Syria to resume operations at its embassy in Washington so the two countries can better coordinate on counterterrorism, security and economic issues.

There was no immediate comment from the Syrian government.

Such a move could pave the way for the withdrawal of US troops from the country.

Just hours before the landmark talks, word emerged of two separate ISIL plots to assassinate al-Sharaa that had been foiled over the last few months, according to a senior Syrian security official and a senior Middle Eastern official.

Over the weekend, the Syrian Ministry of Interior launched a nationwide campaign targeting ISIL cells across the country, arresting more than 70 suspects, state media said.

‘Chance at greatness’

The new sanctions relief announced by Washington on Monday suspends punitive measures under the Caesar Act, which prohibited US business dealings with the Syrian government and military, for an additional 180 days.

“Removing US sanctions will support Syria’s efforts to rebuild its economy, provide prosperity for all its citizens, including its ethnic and religious minorities, and combat terrorism,” the US Treasury Department said in a statement.

It added that Trump is “delivering on his commitment to give Syria ‘a chance at greatness’ and to let them rebuild and thrive by lifting US sanctions and ensuring accountability for harmful actors”.

While the Caesar Act sanctions are currently waived by Trump, a permanent repeal would require Congress to act.

One option is a proposal from Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, that would end the sanctions without any conditions. The other was drafted by Senator Lindsey Graham, a hawkish Trump ally who wants to set conditions for a sanctions repeal that would be reviewed every six months.

But Syria advocates argue that any repeal with conditions would prevent companies from investing in Syria because they would fear potentially being sanctioned.

Mouaz Moustafa, the executive director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, likened it to a “hanging shadow that paralyses any initiatives for our country”.

Israel ties

Al-Sharaa, who arrived in Washington, DC, on Sunday, also met with Congressman Brian Mast, chair of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee and one of the most staunchly pro-Israel politicians in the country.

“Last evening, the new Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa and I broke bread. We had a long and serious conversation about how to build a future for the people of Syria free of war, ISIS, and extremism,” Mast, who previously wore an Israeli army uniform to Congress and argued that there are no innocent Palestinian civilians, said in a statement.

The Republican congressman is reported to be sceptical of the push to lift sanctions against Syria.

Since the fall of al-Assad, Israel has been regularly bombing Syrian military installations and state institutions. The Israeli military has also been advancing in the south of the country, well beyond the occupied Golan Heights.

Al-Sharaa had said early on that Syria would not pose a threat to Israel, and his government has detained senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) members in the country. But the proverbial olive branch has not stemmed the Israeli attacks.

Al-Sharaa has said that his country is seeking a security agreement with Israel to secure the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the areas they occupied over the past year.

On Monday, Trump told reporters he was working with Israel on “getting along with Syria”.

“You can expect some announcements on Syria,” he said when asked about the possibility of an agreement between Syria and Israel.

“We want to see Syria become a country that’s very successful. And I think this leader can do it. I really do. And people said he’s had a rough past. We’ve all had rough pasts.”

The US president said later on his Truth Social platform that he plans to meet and speak with al-Sharaa again.

US priorities for Syria

Trump’s focus on Syria comes as his administration seeks to keep intact a US-brokered Gaza ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas and push forward on his 20-point plan for an end to the two-year-old war in the Palestinian enclave.

Trump has been claiming that the US-brokered ceasefire in Gaza has brought historic peace to the Middle East, despite Israel’s continued daily deadly attacks across the occupied Palestinian territory and Lebanon.

Thomas Warrick, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, said the White House is motivated by a series of regional strategic objectives that it hopes the Trump and al-Sharaa meeting will help achieve.

“The United States has three priorities for Syria,” Warrick told Al Jazeera.

“One of them is a counterterrorism cooperation to make sure that the so-called Islamic State [ISIL] never comes back into power in Syria or Iraq. Second is reducing Iran’s malign influence in Syrian affairs. And then third is improved relations between Syria and Israel, including eventually – although it won’t happen anytime soon – Syria joining the Abraham Accords.”

On the first issue, al-Sharaa and Trump are very closely aligned, Warrick said. And on the Abraham Accords, al-Sharaa has “clearly decided that working diplomatically to engage Israel and the United States is the way for Syria to regain full sovereignty over those parts of Syrian territory that Israel currently has troops on”, Warrick said.

While there has been some measurable progress on the issue, “clearly, there is a long way still to go on that”, he added.