(3 Jan 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Damascus, Syria – 3 January 2025
1. Car carrying French foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, arriving at venue for meeting
2. Barrot arriving and greeting officials
3. Barrot shaking hands with Patriarch John X of Antioch
4. Close of camera
5. Barrot shaking hands with religious officials
6. Various of meeting between Barrot and John X and elegations
STORYLINE:
French foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot met with Christian religious leaders during his visit to Syria on Friday.
Barrot has headed to Damascus along with German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, in the first official visit to Syria by top diplomats from E.U. countries since the fall of Syria’s former President Bashar Assad.
Barrot posted on X that the two countries "want to promote a peaceful and urgent transition in the service of Syrians and for regional stability."
He and Baerbock are expected to meet with Ahmad al-Sharaa, the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Islamist former insurgent group that is now the de facto ruling party in Syria.
Since Assad’s fall, Damascus has seen a flurry of visits from Arab and western countries that had cut off relations with Assad’s government during the country’s nearly 14-year civil war.
But western countries so far have not lifted sanctions that were placed on Syria under Assad or removed the designation of HTS as a terrorist group, although the United States lifted a $10 million bounty it had previously placed on al-Sharaa.
AP video shot by Abdulrahman Shaheen
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