DAMASCUS,— Nechirvan Barzani, president of Iraq’s Kurdistan Region, traveled to the Syrian capital on Monday for talks with Syrian interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, during which he invited the Syrian leader to visit the Kurdistan Region.
Barzani and members of his delegation landed at Damascus International Airport, where they were greeted by Mohammed Taha Ahmed, a senior Syrian foreign ministry official.
He was later received by al-Sharaa at the presidential palace, where a large Kurdish flag, the one used by Iraqi Kurds, was set up at the entrance in his honor.
No Kurdish officials from Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava) took part in the meeting.
Ahead of the trip, the Kurdistan Region Presidency said in a statement that the visit would focus on Syria’s ties with Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, along with opportunities for joint cooperation and recent regional developments.
The Syrian presidency said the two leaders talked about strengthening cooperation and coordination, particularly on economic matters, while also touching on recent regional developments and other shared concerns aimed at supporting stability and security and building regional partnerships.
Writing on social media platform X afterward, Barzani said Syria now stands at a turning point where it can recover, rebuild and move forward after years of difficulty.
He said he told al-Sharaa he trusts his approach and believes that under his leadership, Syria has the potential to reach greater stability and prosperity for its citizens.
Monday’s meeting builds on two years of growing contact between officials in Erbil and Damascus, including previous talks between Barzani and al-Sharaa held in Antalya, Turkey, as well as discussions involving senior Syrian officials during the Munich Security Conference.
Al-Sharaa, better known by his former alias Abu Mohammed al-Golani, built his career within the ranks of al-Qaida and the Islamic State (Is/ISIS) group, two of the world’s most notorious terrorist networks.
He went on to found the al-Nusra Front, al-Qaida’s Syrian branch, a designated terrorist organization responsible for brutal attacks and widespread violence against civilians across the region.
The group later rebranded itself as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, but Western intelligence officials and human rights organizations say its extremist methods and ideology remain fundamentally unchanged.
Despite his recent efforts to reinvent himself as a political statesman, al-Sharaa’s legacy remains inseparable from years of jihadist violence, terrorism and bloodshed carried out under multiple aliases.
The Kurdish Community of Germany filed a criminal complaint in November 2025 accusing al-Sharaa of genocide against Yazidis, war crimes and crimes against humanity, alleging he played a leading role in the 2014 atrocities committed against the Yazidi minority in Syria and Iraq.
(With files from Agencies)
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