Star Metro - Syria's ex-jihadist president holds historic Trump talks

Sharaa, whose rebel forces ousted longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad late last year, is the first Syrian leader to visit the White House since the country's 1946 independence.

Formerly affiliated with Al-Qaeda, Sharaa's group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), was itself only delisted as a terrorist group by Washington in July. Sharaa himself was taken off the list on Friday.

"The president of Syria arrived at the White House... The meeting between President Trump and President al-Sharaa has also started," the White House said in a statement.

Unusually for the normally camera-friendly Trump, both the arrival and the meeting of the Syrian president were taking place behind closed doors without the media present.

Trump said last week that Sharaa was doing a "very good job. It's a tough neighborhood. And he's a tough guy. But I got along with them very well and a lot of progress has been made with Syria."

Since taking power, Syria's new leaders have sought to break from their violent past and present a more moderate image to ordinary Syrians and foreign powers.

Sharaa's White House visit is "a hugely symbolic moment for the country's new leader, who thus marks another step in his astonishing transformation from militant leader to global statesman," said Michael Hanna, US program director at the International Crisis Group.

The interim president met Trump for the first time in Saudi Arabia during the US leader's regional tour in May. At the time the 79-year-old Trump dubbed Sharaa, 43, a "a young, attractive guy."

- Terror blacklist removal -

The US envoy to Syria, Tom Barrack, said earlier this month that Sharaa may on Monday sign an agreement to join the international US-led alliance against the Islamic State (IS) group.

The United States plans to establish a military base near Damascus "to coordinate humanitarian aid and observe developments between Syria and Israel," a diplomatic source in Syria told AFP.

Washington has also been pushing for some kind of pact to end decades of enmity between Syria and Israel, part of Trump's wider goal to shore up the fragile Gaza ceasefire with a broader Middle East peace settlement.

For his part, Sharaa is expected to seek US funds for Syria, which faces significant challenges in rebuilding after 13 years of devastating civil war.

After his arrival in Washington, Sharaa over the weekend met with IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva over possible aid.

He also played basketball with US CENTCOM commander Brad Cooper and Kevin Lambert, the head of the international anti-IS operation in Iraq, according to a social media post by Syria's foreign minister.

Sharaa's jihadist past has caused controversy in some quarters but the State Department's decision Friday to remove Sharaa from the blacklist was widely expected.

State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said Sharaa's government had been meeting US demands on working to find missing Americans and on eliminating any remaining chemical weapons.

Sharaa's trip comes weeks after he became the first Syrian president in decades to address the UN General Assembly in New York. Last week Washington led a Security Council vote to remove UN sanctions against him.

The Syrian president has also been making diplomatic outreach towards Washington's rivals. He met Russian President Vladimir Putin in October in their first meeting since the removal of Assad, a key Kremlin ally.

O.Martin--SMC