UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres landed in Damascus Saturday, marking the first visit by a UN chief to Syria since 2009, a milestone that predates the civil war entirely.
Why it matters: Guterres’s three-day trip signals growing international engagement with Syria’s new leadership, more than a year and a half after President Ahmed Al-Sharaa’s forces ousted longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad and ended over 13 years of war.
- Foreign Minister Asaad Al-Shaibani greeted Guterres and his delegation at Damascus International Airport, state news agency SANA reported.
- Guterres will meet Sharaa, who last year became the first Syrian president in decades to address the UN General Assembly.
- He’ll also engage civil society groups, women’s rights organizations, and address Syria’s new transitional parliament, which held its first session this month.
A Fragile Transition
Sharaa’s Islamist-led government still faces intense pressure to build inclusive institutions that represent Syria’s diverse religious and ethnic communities. Yet two major episodes of sectarian violence have tested those promises. Government-aligned factions killed nearly 1,500 Alawites in Syria’s coastal region last year, and months later, similar bloodshed claimed hundreds of lives among the Druze minority in the south.
Guterres has expressed alarm over both incidents and repeatedly called for accountability. Ahead of the visit, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Guterres “will emphasise that the opportunity now is not only to recover from conflict, but also to lay the foundations for a future for Syria that will be more stable, more inclusive and more prosperous for all Syrians.” Dujarric added that the secretary-general will also “reaffirm the role of the United Nations is to accompany and support the Syrian people on this journey.”
Likewise, UN special envoy Claudio Cordone said this week that Guterres intends to “reaffirm the United Nations commitment to supporting the Syrian government and the Syrian people at this defining period in Syria’s history.”
What Else Is on the Agenda
Guterres will also visit UN peacekeepers stationed in the Golan Heights since 1974. Tensions there have escalated sharply since Assad’s fall, as foreign troops have entered the UN-patrolled buffer zone and struck deeper into Syrian territory, actions the UN and international observers have repeatedly condemned.
The bottom line: Guterres’s visit follows a wave of senior UN engagement with Damascus, including trips by rights chief Volker Turk and nuclear watchdog head Rafael Grossi, plus the first-ever visit by a UN Security Council delegation late last year. Together, these visits highlight the world body’s deepening role as Syria charts its fragile path toward recovery.
