Fourteen members of the UN Security Council voted in favour of the US-drafted resolution. China abstained.
The United Nations Security Council has voted to remove sanctions on Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa and his Interior Minister Anas Khattab following a resolution championed by the United States.
In a largely symbolic move, the UNSC delisted the Syrian government officials from the ISIL (ISIS) and al-Qaeda sanctions list, in a resolution approved by 14 council members on Thursday. China abstained.
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The formal lifting of sanctions on al-Sharaa is largely symbolic, as they were waived every time he needed to travel outside of Syria in his role as the country’s leader. An assets freeze and arms embargo will also be lifted.
Al-Sharaa led opposition fighters who overthrew President Bashar al-Assad’s government in December. His group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), began an offensive on November 27, 2024, reaching Damascus in only 12 days, resulting in the end of the al-Assad family’s 53-year reign.
The collapse of the al-Assad family’s rule has been described as a historic moment – nearly 14 years after Syrians rose in peaceful protests against a government that met them with violence that quickly spiralled into a bloody civil war.
HTS had been on the UNSC’s ISIL and al-Qaeda sanctions list since May 2014.
Since coming to power, al-Sharaa has called on the US to formally lift sanctions on his country, saying the sanctions imposed on the previous Syrian leadership were no longer justified.
US President Donald Trump met the Syrian president in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, in May and ordered most sanctions lifted. However, the most stringent sanctions were imposed by Congress under the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act in 2019 and will require a congressional vote to remove them permanently.
In a bipartisan statement, the top Democrat and Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee welcomed the UN action Thursday and said it was now Congress’s turn to act to “bring the Syrian economy into the 21st century”.
We “are actively working with the administration and our colleagues in Congress to repeal Caesar sanctions”, Senators Jim Risch and Jeanne Shaheen said in a statement ahead of the vote. “It’s time to prioritize reconstruction, stability, and a path forward rather than isolation that only deepens hardship for Syrians.”
Al-Sharaa plans to meet with Trump in Washington next week, the first visit by a Syrian president to Washington since the country gained independence in 1946.
While Israel and Syria remain formally in a state of war, with Israel still occupying Syria’s Golan Heights, Trump has expressed hope that the two countries can normalise relations.
