Syria’s leader Ahmed al-Sharaa said Monday that US President Donald Trump supports his insistence on a complete Israeli withdrawal from Syrian territory as a condition for a comprehensive security deal between the long-warring neighboring countries.
Speaking to The Washington Post after becoming the first Syrian leader to meet a US president in Washington, Sharaa said Trump would “push as quickly as possible in order to reach a solution for this.”
Israeli troops took up several positions in southwestern Syria following the fall of the Bashar Assad regime last year, in what Jerusalem has said is a temporary security measure.
While Washington is keen to eventually normalize ties between Israel and Syria, the latter is aiming first at a security deal, with the condition that Israeli troops withdraw from its territory.
Sharaa said that during his Monday meeting with the US president, “we found that Mr. Trump supports our perspective as well, and he will push as quickly as possible in order to reach a solution for this.”
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“Israel has always claimed that it has concerns about Syria because it is afraid of the threats that the Iranian militias and Hezbollah represent,” Shara said, referring to the Lebanese terror group. “We are the ones who expelled those forces out of Syria.”
Israeli soldiers operate on the Syrian side of Mount Hermon, August 12, 2025. (Ayal Margolin/Flash90)
Sharaa also said an Israeli demand that the territory south of Damascus be demilitarized is unreasonable, and will cause chaos.
“If this demilitarized zone was used by some parties as a launching pad for hitting Israel, who is going to be responsible for that?” he said.
Sharaa charged that Israel’s invasion of Syria comes from “expansionist ambitions” and not security concerns.
“Israel occupied the Golan Heights in order to protect Israel, and now they are imposing conditions in the south of Syria in order to protect the Golan Heights,” he said ironically, referring to an area in northern Israel that Jerusalem retained control of after the 1967 Six Day War, and annexed in the 1980s. “So after a few years, maybe they will occupy the center of Syria in order to protect the south of Syria. They will reach Munich on that pathway.”
There is a “good distance to go” before Syria can reach an agreement with Israel, Sharaa said.
“To reach a final agreement, Israel should withdraw to their pre-December 8 borders,” he said, referring to the date of the fall of the Assad regime and the simultaneous Israeli advance into the buffer zone between the two countries and beyond.
In this photo released by the Syrian Presidency press office, President Donald Trump, right, speaks with Syria’s President Ahmad al-Sharaa, at the White House in Washington, Monday, Nov. 10, 2025. (Syrian Presidency press office via AP)
Sharaa, 43, took power last year after his Islamist fighters launched a lightning offensive from their enclave in Syria’s northwest and overthrew Assad just days later.
Israel remains wary of Sharaa’s former terror ties and has criticized his government’s treatment of minorities, particularly the Druze. It has also launched multiple airstrikes and raids inside Syrian territory that it says are meant to prevent weapons from falling into the hands of hostile forces.
Sharaa said Syria has not responded to what he tallied as over 1,000 Israeli airstrikes on its territory, “because we want to rebuild Syria.”
He also confirmed that the two sides are involved in “direct negotiations,” and claimed Syria has support for its position from “many international parties.”
Members of Syria’s new armed forces, comprising former rebels who overthrew the Assad’s regime, march during a military parade in downtown Damascus, Syria, December 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Trump’s Monday meeting with Sharaa came six months after their first sit-down in Saudi Arabia, during which the US president announced plans to lift sanctions on Damascus, and just days after the US said the former al-Qaeda commander was no longer a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist.”
The US has been working to broker an Israeli-Syrian agreement since Sharaa toppled Assad. Trump did not elaborate on those efforts following their meeting, beyond saying his administration was working on the two countries “getting along.” In a social media post Monday night, he wrote that he and Sharaa “discussed all the intricacies of PEACE in the Middle East, of which he is a major advocate.”
Speaking of US-Syria ties, Sharaa told the Post his most important objective in meeting Trump was “building the relationship” between the two countries that, over :the past 100 years, wasn’t a very good relationship.”
The US and Syria “have a lot of common interests that we can build on,” he said, listing security and economic matters.
Bullet holes deface a mural depicting the toppled Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in Adra town on the northeastern outskirts of Damascus, Syria, December 25, 2024. (Sameer Al-Doumy / AFP)
Asked about his past activities fighting against the United States, Sharra claimed he was defending his own land and had never caused the death of an innocent person.
“The region was affected by the policies — Western policies and US policies — and today, we have so many Americans who agree with us that some of these policies were a mistake and that they caused so many wars that were pointless,” he said.
He also spoke of the importance of working with Russia, whose forces he battled during the Syrian civil war as Moscow tried to prop up the ailing Damascus regime.
“We need Russia because it’s a permanent member of the Security Council,” he said. “We need their vote to be on our side in some issues, and we have strategic interests with them. We don’t want to push Russia to take alternative or other options in dealing with Syria.”
Agencies contributed to this report.
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