Guterres arrives in Syria for first UN secretary-general visit since before civil war

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres arrived in Syria on Saturday on the first visit by a head of the global body since before the country's civil war broke out, state media reported.

During the three-day visit, Guterres is set to reaffirm support for Syria's transition, more than a year and a half after the new authorities led by President Ahmed al-Sharaa overthrew longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad after more than 13 years of war.

Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani received Guterres "and his accompanying delegation at Damascus international airport", state news agency SANA reported.

He is the first UN chief to visit Syria since Ban Ki-moon in 2009, two years before the start of Syria's civil war that went on to kill more than half a million people before Assad's overthrow in December 2024.

Sharaa, who broke ties with al Qaeda in 2016, led an alliance of Islamist rebel factions that ousted Assad in a lightning offensive in December 2024.

Since Sharaa took power, the international community has urged the new Islamist authorities to build strong and effective institutions and establish a governance system that includes all components of Syria's multi-ethnic, multi-confessional country society.

The transition has been marred by two major episodes of sectarian bloodshed that have tested Sharaa's repeated pledges to protect Syria's religious minorities. Nearly 1,500 Alawites – the minority religion to which Assad belonged – were killed in Syria's coastal region last year by government-aligned factions, and hundreds of Syrians from the Druze minority were killed months later in the country's south.

Guterres expressed alarm over both bouts of violence and has called for accountability.

The UN secretary-general "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", his spokesman Stephane Dujarric said ahead of the visit.

He will also "reaffirm the role of the United Nations is to accompany and support the Syrian people on this journey", Dujarric added.

'Defining moment'

UN special envoy to the country Claudio Cordone said earlier this week that Guterres would "reaffirm the United Nations commitment to supporting the Syrian government and the Syrian people at this defining period in Syria's history".

Guterres is to meet Sharaa, who last year made a landmark visit to the UN where he became the first Syrian president in decades to address the body's General Assembly.

The UN chief is also set to meet representatives of Syrian civil society and non-governmental organisations supporting women's issues, and to address the new transitional parliament, which held its first session earlier this month.

He is also set to visit a UN peacekeeping force that has been stationed in south Syria's Israeli-occupied Golan Heights since 1974.

After Assad's December 2024 overthrow, Israel sent troops to occupy the UN-patrolled buffer zone that separated Israeli and Syrian forces on the Golan, and has carried out strikes and repeated incursions deeper into Syrian territory.

Israeli officials have said they intend to keep forces in a "security zone" in southern Syria, where they seek a broader demilitarised zone.

Despite tensions between the neighbours, Israel and Syria's new authorities have held several rounds of direct talks and have agreed to establish an intelligence-sharing mechanism, though the move has failed to halt Israeli military actions that have been condemned by the UN and members of the international community.

Several senior UN officials have visited Syria since Assad's fall, including rights chief Volker Turk and UN nuclear watchdog head Rafael Grossi, while a UN Security Council delegation of ambassadors made its first-ever visit to Syria late last year.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP and Reuters)