In the seven months since Syria’s former president Bashar al-Assad was overthrown, 78 foreign governments and multinational bodies have descended on Damascus to engage with Syria’s new interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa and his transition team.
No post-conflict country in history has come close to matching such a sudden and large-scale surge of diplomatic engagement. Considering the consequences associated of half a century of Assad dictatorship and 13 years of debilitating conflict, the progress Syria has achieved in these past months is extraordinary.
Almost all sanctions and designations imposed on the country over the past five decades have been removed or waived, while Syria has been swiftly reintegrated into regional and global multilateral bodies. To illustrate this, President al-Sharaa is expected to address the UN General Assembly in September, making him the first Syrian leader to do so since 1967.
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