AMMAN: The President of the Syrian Arab Republic Ahmed Al-Sharaa will visit Jordan on Wednesday and meet King Abdullah to discuss boosting ties between the two neighbors, two Jordanian officials said.
The visit is the leader’s third foreign trip along with Saudi Arabia and Turkiye since he came to power after leading a militant offensive which ousted Bashar Assad.
Sharaa is expected to hold wide-ranging talks over border security and ways of expanding commercial ties.
Assad’s relationships with most of the Arab world and his neighbors were strained throughout the nearly 14-year Syrian war.
Sharaa has pledged to stamp out rampant drug smuggling along the two countries’ borders which proliferated during the rule of toppled Assad and whom Jordan blamed on pro-Iranian militias that held sway in southern Syria.
Jordan, which hosted the first international conference on Syria a week after Assad was forced to flee, wants to see a peaceful political transition in Syria, fearing a return of chaos and instability along its borders.
Officials have said they were ready to help Syria rebuild and promised to help it ease its acute power shortages by supplying it with electricity and gas.
On Sunday, Al-Sharaa received an invitation to attend an Egyptian-hosted Arab League meeting on Gaza, the Syrian presidency said.
“The president of the Syrian Arab Republic, Mr.Ahmed Al-Sharaa, received an official invitation from the president of the Arab Republic of Egypt... to participate in the extraordinary Arab League summit” on March 4 in Cairo, the presidency statement said.
The upcoming Cairo summit is set to focus primarily on Arab efforts to counter US President Donald Trump’s plan to redevelop Gaza into an international beach resort and his calls for Egypt and Jordan to resettle displaced Gazans.
