US secretary of state to meet Europeans on Syria pathway

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will meet his European counterparts Thursday in Rome on Syria, as the West looks to engage the new leadership.

Blinken will “meet with European counterparts to advocate for a peaceful, inclusive, Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political transition,” a State Department statement said as he visited Seoul on Monday.

The State Department did not immediately specify the participants.

Blinken, on a trip that will also take him to Japan and France, will later join U.S. President Joe Biden as he pays a farewell visit to Rome that includes an audience with Pope Francis.

HTS-led forces toppled longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in a lightning offensive last month after 13 years of brutal war.

Western powers have since been cautiously hoping for greater stability in Syria, a decade after the war triggered a major refugee crisis that shook up European politics.

The French and German foreign ministers on Friday visited Syria, although the trip was overshadowed when new leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa shook the hand only of France’s Jean-Noel Barrot, a man, and not Germany’s Annalena Baerbock, a woman.

Senior US diplomat Barbara Leaf met Sharaa last month and said that the United States was lifting a bounty that has been on its head.

She also welcomed “positive messages” he has made, including on protection of minorities, and said he had promised that Syria would not pose a threat to neighboring countries, as Israel pounds Syrian military sites.