Donald Trump has been speaking in Saudi Arabia after meeting Syria’s President Ahmed al Sharaa – a man once imprisoned by the US. The US leader is now heading to Qatar. Watch live from Doha below with Trump due to arrive soon.
Wednesday 14 May 2025 11:30, UK
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Donald Trump’s deal with Saudi Arabia takes the nation “forward”, the former British ambassador to the US and Israel has said.
Speaking to Sky’s Gareth Barlow, Sir David Manning said: “I think the president will be pleased with what he has achieved.
“This deal takes the relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia forward.
“It has always been one of his priorities to cultivate the Saudis and it also demonstrates the president as a dealmaker, something he likes to do. I think he will be pleased about that.”
The former ambassador also said Trump’s visit was very much “focused on the key Arab allies”.
“Whether anything that he’s negotiated with the Saudi crown prince is going to affect how the relationship between Saudi Arabia and Israel we don’t know,” he added.
“It’s always been a Trump ambition to try and bring the Saudis into a position where they recognise Israel. That’s become much more difficult because of Israel’s policies in Gaza.
“But we wait to see whether there’s any strategic dimension to this.
“On the commercial front, I’m sure he will be very pleased to be able to go home and say he’s he signed these enormous deals.”
By Mark Stone, US correspondent, in Doha
It was a meeting perfectly symbolic of Donald Trump’s message on this Middle East trip.
An American and Syrian president have not met face-to-face for 25 years.
It was in 2000 when Bill Clinton met Hafez al Assad, just months before he died, handing the family dynasty to his son Bashar.
But the remarkable nature of this meeting runs much deeper than that.
The 33-minute encounter between President Trump and President al Sharaa in Saudi Arabia is perfectly symbolic of the message that is emerging from this trip: reconciliation and opportunity – the Trump way.
Just a year ago, the man who is now Syria’s president was a jihadi military leader; an Islamist fighter whose group HTS and its precursor, the Nusra Front, had been aligned to al Qaeda and ISIS before turning on them.
The Americans had a $10m bounty on his head.
The journey to this moment in a palace with Trump gets wilder still.
Go back to 2003, the year a younger Ahmed Sharaa set off for Iraq.
The Americans were about to invade and overthrow Saddam Hussein. The country was set for a long and brutal insurgency, with the Americans caught haplessly in the middle.
Sharaa fought the Americans – a young, ideological Islamist who was eventually captured.
Between 2006 and 2011, he languished in the Abu Ghraib American military jail in Iraq.
The prison became synonymous with American misadventure in the Middle East after horrific American abuses against prisoners were exposed.
Sharaa was inside Abu Ghraib at the same time as Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, who would become the leader of ISIS before being killed on the orders of President Trump in 2019.
There are many twists of history wrapped up in this historic meeting.
Another is that Sharaa happens to have been born in Riyadh, the city where today, 42 years later, and as the leader of his own country, he met America’s president.
Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani will meet Donald Trump and the emir of Qatar in Doha today, two sources have told Reuters.
Ambani will attend a state dinner for Trump at the Lusail Palace, but does not plan to hold any investment or business discussions, one of the sources has said.
The visit comes as Ambani’s company Reliance Industries looks to foster ties with authorities in both nations.
Ambani is Asia’s richest man and has many business partnerships, including with the likes of US tech giants Google and Meta.
Further details about Ambani’s visit are still not clear.
Donald Trump is departing from King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh.
You can watch live scenes of Trump’s departure in the stream at the top of the page.
Zein Jaafar, an editor for international news at Sky, is in Saudi Arabia with our lead world news presenter Yalda Hakim covering Donald Trump’s Middle East tour.
He says two points of Trump’s five demands to Syria’s new leader are particularly interesting (see the full list in our 9.34 post).
The two points he highlights are:
Here’s his analysis on the Abraham Accords…
The UAE has been at the forefront of leading backchannel negotiations between Syria and Israel, which they say is strictly for “security” coordination.
However, there is speculation it could lead to fuller diplomatic relations in the future.
In the meantime, Israel has carried out several military strikes in Syria including one near the presidential palace in Damascus earlier this month.
And on ISIS detention centres…
The issue of who assumes responsibility for Islamic State detention centres in northeast Syria is also contentious.
Currently, the US-backed and Kurdish-led group the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) is responsible for maintaining security at prisons and the camps holding IS fighters and their families.
The SDF has often complained it doesn’t have the resources or adequate support to secure these facilities and urged foreign countries to repatriate their citizens.
Germany, Denmark and Russia are amongst those who’ve complied with the request, but the UK has not – most notably in the case of Shamima Begum, the former British schoolgirl who had her citizenship stripped last year.
Mazloum Abdi, the commander of the SDF, recently agreed with President al Sharaa to integrate his forces into the Syrian army but questions remain about the timeline and implementation of the deal.
Following Donald Trump and Syrian President Ahmed al Sharaa’s meeting, it should be noted that France’s President Emmanuel Macron also met al Sharaa last week.
Speaking alongside Syria’s interim leader, who was in Paris for his first trip to Europe since the overthrow of former Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad in December, the French leader said he wanted the EU to end Syrian sanctions on Syria when they come up for renewal in June.
He also said it was the international community’s duty to ease Syria’s economic plight.
“I told the president [al Sharaa] that if he continues on his path, we would do the same. Namely, by first progressively lifting European sanctions, and then we would also lobby our American partners to follow suit on this matter,” Macron said.
He later added that he would propose that EU sanctions be allowed to expire on 1 June.
With the World Bank estimating Syria’s reconstruction costs at more than $250bn, al Sharaa wants sanctions relief to kickstart an economy battered by 14 years of civil war.
During that period, the US, EU and Britain imposed tough sanctions on the Assad government.
The EU has lifted some sanctions, while some others that target individuals and entities are due to expire next month.
Renewing those would require consensus among the 27 member states, although the bloc could opt for a limited renewal.
“Sanctions are an obstacle we discussed at length. I explained all the consequences and impact and said the sanctions were imposed on the previous regime and nothing justifies the sanctions being maintained,” al Sharaa said in Paris.
The Syrian leader received a UN exemption to travel to Paris as he remains on a terrorism sanctions list for his previous leadership of the Islamist armed group Hayat Tahrir al Sham, a former al Qaeda affiliate.
The language used by Donald Trump in his farewell speech in Saudi Arabia was “mind-boggling”, our Middle East correspondent Alistair Bunkall says.
“It was extraordinary listening to the language used by Trump addressing Middle East leaders when you compare and contrast it to language he has been using recently with the EU, China and Canada.
“It’s mind-boggling.
“With Donald Trump, it comes down to money, and the Gulf state has some money to spend and can do deals with America, and that speaks to what Trump wants.”
Bunkall notes that Saudi Arabia has “softened its relations with Iran” in recent years and also has a “different outlook on life right now”.
“It’s looking to diversify its economy and I think they probably see a deal with Iran as better than conflict with Iran,” he adds.
“You have a different Middle East to the last time Donald Trump was in power and in the region.”
The White House has now released a readout of Donald Trump’s meeting with Syrian President Ahmad al Sharaa.
Trump told al Sharaa that he has a tremendous opportunity to do something historic in his country.
The US president had a list of five demands for him:
Pictures of that meeting have also been released…
Donald Trump says a stable and peaceful Middle East will be “successful and prosperous”.
“I see the things that you’re doing here and in your countries, it’s just incredible what you’re doing and the whole world is talking about it,” he says.
Trump goes on to describe the region as “the envy of the world”.
“Together, we’re in this room and we’re going to forge a Middle East that will be a thriving commercial, diplomatic and cultural crossroads at the geographic centre of the world.
“That’s what it is, the centre of the world.”
The lifting of sanctions on Syria “gives them a chance for greatness”, Donald Trump says.
“The sanctions were really crippling, very powerful,” he says.
Trump says the US lifting sanctions will give Syria a “good strong chance”.
He adds: “We will be dropping all of the sanctions on Syria which I think will be a good thing.”
Earlier, Trump met with Syrian President Ahmad al Sharaa ahead of the Gulf Cooperation Council Leaders’ meeting at the Ritz Carlton in Riyadh.
It was the first meeting between the nations’ leaders in 25 years.
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