The Syrian Foreign Minister says he will visit Saudi Arabia on his first official trip abroad Syrian war news

The visit comes at a time when Asaad Hassan Al-Shaibani, the newly appointed Syrian Foreign Minister, is meeting with officials from the Gulf Cooperation Council countries in Damascus.

The new Syrian Foreign Minister, Asaad Hassan Al-Shaibani, said that he accepted an invitation from his Saudi counterpart, Prince Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah, to visit Syria, in what will be his first official foreign trip.

“I am honored to represent my country on my first official visit (to Saudi Arabia),” Al-Shaibani said in a post on the X website on Monday.

He added: “We look forward to building strategic relations with our brothers in the Kingdom in all fields,” describing the visit as a goodwill gesture and a step towards restoring Syria’s role in the region after the aggression. Fall of the old ruler Bashar al-Assad this month.

Al-Shaibani was appointed Foreign Minister on December 21 by the Syrian interim government, becoming the country’s first senior diplomat since the ouster of Assad.

Al-Shaibani said, during a press conference with his Kuwaiti counterpart, Abdullah Al-Yahya, in the capital, Damascus, later Monday, that his visit to Saudi Arabia is scheduled for “the first week of the new year.”

He also called on Kuwait “with love and joy” to reopen its embassy in Damascus and resume relations with Syria after the crisis The fall of the lion.

The visit of Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Al-Yahya was the latest by regional leaders and diplomats because it indicates openness to establishing relations in the wake of the overthrow of Assad by opposition forces on December 8.

The Gulf Cooperation Council countries are ready to invest in Syria

Al-Yahya and the Secretary-General of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Jassem Mohammed Al-Budaiwi, also met with the de facto President of Syria, Ahmed Al-Sharaa, during their visit. Al-Yahya said that they discussed regional developments and cooperation.

Al-Yahya called on the international community to reconsider the sanctions imposed on Syria. He added that the Kuwaiti leadership called for sending aid to Syria urgently.

He said: “The visit expresses our keenness to open a new page in regional cooperation… We also appreciate the response of the new administration in Syria to these efforts.”

Sunni Arab countries boycotted the previous Syrian administration after Assad accepted help from Shiite and non-Arab Iran and Russia to put down the rebellion against him. In 2013, the Arab League readmitted Syria after more than a decade of suspension.

Earlier on Monday, Al-Sharaa met with the Ukrainian Foreign Minister in Damascus and announced a new strategic partnership.

Visit by Chief diplomat of Ukraine This came after President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday that his country had sent the first batch of food aid, 500 tons of wheat flour, to Syria.

Al Jazeera’s Rasoul Sardar, reporting from Damascus, said that “one delegation after another” was arriving in Damascus to express its support for the new administration.

Al-Yahya and Al-Badawi were “making it clear that they are here not only on behalf of Kuwait, but on behalf of all the Gulf states – saying that they are ready to invest in Syria, and they welcome Syria’s return to the Arab world.” Sardar said.

Sardar said that the visit is particularly important because “Syria urgently needs investments in its energy sector because it has been devastated by the civil war that has been going on for 13 years.”