The meeting comes as new authorities try to reassure minorities in post-Assad Syria of their safety.

de facto leader of syria Ahmed Sala Meetings with senior Christian clerics on Tuesday called on leaders of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) to safeguard minority rights after seizing power earlier this month.

“The leader of Syria’s new government, Ahmed Sala, met with a delegation from the Christian community in Damascus,” the Syrian General Command said in a statement posted on Telegram.

The statement included photos of meetings with Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican clergy.

Earlier on Tuesday, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrow called for an inclusive political transition in Syria that guarantees the rights of the country’s diverse communities.

He expressed hope that “the Syrians can take back their control” own destiny“.

But for this to happen, Barot said during a visit to Lebanon with Defense Minister Sebastien Le Cornou, “Syria needs a political transition that embraces the diversity of all communities and safeguards the most basic rights and basic free”.

Barrow and Le Cornou also met with Lebanese Army Chief of Staff Joseph Aoun and visited United Nations peacekeepers patrolling the southern border. a fragile truce Fierce fighting between Israel and Hezbollah ended in late November.

“Positive” talks with Self-Defense Forces

Since seizing power, Syria’s new leadership, led by Shala, a former al-Qaida member, has repeatedly tried to reassure minorities that they will not be harmed, although some isolated incidents have sparked protests.

On December 25, a video circulated showing an attack on an Alawite holy site in the north of the country, and thousands of people held protests in many areas of Syria.

A day earlier, hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets of Damascus’s Christian district to protest against the burning of a Christmas tree near Hama in central Syria.

According to analyst Fabrice Balanche, there were about 1 million Christians in Syria before the civil war broke out in 2011, but the number has now dropped to about 300,000.

Earlier, a Syrian official told AFP that Sala held “positive” talks with representatives of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on Monday.

The talks were Sala’s first with an SDF commander since rebels overthrew longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in early December, and come as the SDF is locked in fighting with Turkish-backed factions in northern Syria. occasion.

In 2019, the U.S.-backed SDF led a military campaign to drive Islamic State (ISIS) militants from their last remaining territories in Syria.

But Turkiye, who has long been associated with al-Sharaa’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group, said the SDF are led by members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has waged a four-year insurgency against the Turkish state and has Turkey and the United States are called “terrorist” organizations.

On Sunday, Sala told Al Arabiya television that the SDF should be integrated into the new national army.

“Weapons must remain in the hands of the state. Whoever is armed and qualified to join the Department of Defense will be welcomed.”