Middle Eastern and European diplomats convened in Saudi Arabia on Sunday to discuss post-Assad Syria, focusing on potential sanctions relief and efforts to stabilize the region.
Saudi Arabia, the Middle East's biggest economy, is seeking to increase its influence in Syria after anti-regime forces toppled long-time dictator Bashar Assad last month, analysts say.
The talks included a meeting of Arab officials as well as a broader gathering that also includes Türkiye, France, the European Union and the United Nations, a Saudi official told AFP.
Syria's new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, who led the main rebel group in the alliance that overthrew Assad, is pushing for sanctions relief. His administration is represented at the Riyadh talks by Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani.
Ahead of the meetings Sunday, Kaja Kallas, the EU foreign policy chief, said the bloc's foreign ministers would convene in Brussels on Jan. 27 in an effort to relax sanctions on Syria.
Any European decision to ease sanctions would be conditional on the new Syrian administration's approach to governing, which must include "different groups" and women and "no radicalization," Kallas said, without elaborating.
"If we see the developments going to the right direction, we are ready to do the next steps ... If we see that it's not going to the right direction, then we can also move back on this."
Meanwhile, Germany, which is leading the EU's discussion on sanctions, on Sunday proposed allowing relief for the Syrian population but retaining sanctions on Assad allies who "committed serious crimes" during Syria's war.
"Syrians now need a quick dividend from the transition of power, and we continue to help those in Syria who have nothing, as we have done all the years of civil war," German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told reporters in Riyadh.
She said Germany would provide a further 50 million euros ($51.27 million) for food, emergency shelters and medical care.
Western powers, including the United States and the European Union, imposed sanctions on Assad's government over his brutal crackdown on anti-government protests in 2011, which triggered civil war.
More than 13 years of conflict have killed over half a million Syrians, left infrastructure destroyed and the people impoverished, while millions have fled their homes, including to Europe.
The United States Treasury Department said last Monday it would ease enforcement of restrictions affecting essential services such as energy and sanitation.
But U.S. officials say they will wait to see progress before any wider easing of sanctions.
According to the U.N., seven in 10 Syrians need help.
Saudi Arabia cut ties with Assad's government in 2012 and had long openly championed his ouster. But in 2023 it hosted an Arab League meeting at which Assad was welcomed back into the regional fold.
This month the Gulf kingdom sent food, shelter and medical supplies to Syria over land and by plane.
Riyadh is now negotiating how to support the war-struck country's transition beyond that.
"This summit sends the message that Saudi Arabia wants to take the lead on coordinating the regional effort to support Syria's recovery," said Anna Jacobs, a nonresident fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.
"But the big question is how much time and how many resources will Saudi Arabia devote to this effort? And what is possible with many of the sanctions remaining in place?"
The meetings Sunday represent a continuation of talks on post-Assad Syria held last month in Jordan, the Saudi official said.
After those talks, diplomats called for a Syrian-led transition to "produce an inclusive, non-sectarian and representative government formed through a transparent process".
U.S. Under Secretary of State John Bass was also set to attend the Riyadh meeting, coming from talks in Türkiye that covered "regional stability, preventing Syria from being used as a base for terrorism, and ensuring the enduring defeat" of the Daesh (ISIS) group, the State Department said.
Saudi Arabia is among the countries taking a more cautious approach to Syria's new administration than Türkiye and Qatar, which were the first to reopen embassies in Damascus after Assad's fall, said Umer Karim, an expert on Saudi politics at the University of Birmingham.
But Riyadh is "positively approaching" the new leaders in Syria, looking to see if they can bring stability and "control the more extreme elements in (their) ranks," Karim said.
