Companies and banks from Türkiye will benefit from the U.S. decision to lift sanctions on Syria, Onur Genç, chief executive officer of financial group BBVA, said on Wednesday.
In a major policy shift, U.S. President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he would order the lifting of sanctions on Syria, and he met with Syrian interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Wednesday.
Trump was in Saudi Arabia, the first stopover of a regional tour. Earlier Tuesday, he implied that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan persuaded him to make the landmark decision.
That had been a key goal for Türkiye, and Erdoğan also met online with Trump, al-Sharaa and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Türkiye is expected to play a major role in the reconstruction of Syria as it emerges from more than a decade of civil war.
"For Türkiye, it's going to be positive because there's a lot of reconstruction needed in Syria. Who's there to do that? The Turkish companies," said Genç, whose group comprises Garanti BBVA, the second-largest private bank in Türkiye.
He said Garanti BBVA had been "a bit troubled in financing Turkish companies doing work in Syria," but he hoped that would become easier.
"The lifting of the sanctions would allow the Turkish companies to go there now much better, and the Turkish banks to be able to finance them – so it will help," he told Reuters on the sidelines of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development's (EBRD) annual meeting in London.
Genç said he would need to review the details of the sanctions removal – which have yet to be published – before he could assess their full impact.
"I do think it seems like it's going to be fully lifted, so it's going to be good for the banking system."
