The head of Syria’s General Command, Ahmed al-Sharaa arrives for a meeting with visiting Druze officials from Lebanon in Damascus, December 22, 2024 (AFP)

UPDATES: Syria’s Foreign Minister at Davos — “Help Us In This New Experiment”

UPDATE 1750 GMT:

Syria’s leader Ahmed al-Sharaa hosting a women’s delegation from the Syrian community in the US:

Syria leader Ahmed al-Sharaa with women's delegation from Syrian community in the US

UPDATE 1621 GMT:

Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has called for the unification of armed groups in Syria under a single national army.

The intervention comes amid the new Syria Government’s talks with Turkish-backed factions in the north of the country and with the US-supported, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.

The Turkish-supported fighters and the SDF have been clashing amid Ankara’s long-time campaign against the autonomous Syrian Kurdish area in the northeast.

“The existence of multiple armed groups affiliated with different authorities means a ground for civil war. This is not acceptable,” Fidan told a Saudi broadcaster on Sunday.

He emphasized Turkey’s “constructive influence”:

The armed groups in the country should now be brought together under a single army, and a single legitimate state organ should only be authorized to carry weapons and use force. This is what should happen in all modern states.

There are groups aligned with Turkey comprising over 80,000 armed elements. We told them to go and join the national army without hesitation and not allow any disorder to occur in the country.

On Sunday, Syria’s leader Ahmed al-Sharaa hosted a Turkish delegation led by Ankara’s intelligence head Ibrahim Kalin.

The meeting was also attended by Syria’s Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani and General Intelligence chief Anas Khattab.

UPDATE, JAN 27:

Some European Union sanctions against Syria will be lifted today, says France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot.

EU Foreign Ministers are convening in Brussels, with foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas saying she is hopeful of the easing of the sanctions that were imposed over the Assad regime’s deadly repression.

Barrot said, “Regarding Syria, we are going to decide today to lift, to suspend, certain sanctions that had applied to the energy and transport sectors and to financial institutions that were key to the financial stabilization of the country.”

He added that France will propose sanctions on Iranian officials responsible for the detention of French citizens in the Islamic Republic.

ORIGINAL ENTRY, JAN 25: The US is sharing secret intelligence on threats from the Islamic State with Syria’s new government.

“Multiple current and former US officials familiar with the exchanges” confirmed the cooperation. In at least one case, the intelligence helped thwart an ISIS plot to attack a religious shrine outside Damascus in early January.

The officials said the cooperation with the government, led by the Islamist faction Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, is driven by a mutual interest in preventing the resurgence of the Islamic State.

They stressed that it does not reflect a full embrace of HTS, which is still formally a designated terrorist organization. The Trump Administration listed HTS in 2018 citing its past affiliation with Al Qa’eda, which was terminated by the faction in 2016.

One former US official said of the provision of intelligence, “It’s the right, prudent and appropriate thing to do, given that there was credible, specific information, and coupled with our efforts to cultivate a relationship with these guys.”

There have been direct encounters between US intelligence officials and representatives of HTS in Syria and a third country. The contact began around two weeks after Syrian rebels toppled the Assad regime on December 8.

On January 11, the Syrian government announced that it thwarted an Islamic State plot to set off a bomb at Sayyida Zainab, a Shia Muslim shrine and pilgrimage site in southern Damascus.

Officials confirmed that the attack was averted thanks to warnings provided by US intelligence agencies.

The cooperation paralleled US diplomatic contacts with the new Syrian government. Just before Christmas, a US delegation led by Barbara Leaf, travelled to Damascus. They met Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, the head of HTS, who was informed that Washington was lifting a $10 million bounty on his head.

A former senior US official said Washington has urged Syria’s new leaders to be vigilant about an Islamic State resurgence. HTS responded positively.