Syrian President al-Sharaa delivered historic address at the 80th UN General Assembly in New York, first by a Syrian leader in 60 years.
United Nations: Turning the page on decades of distance, Syria’s president addressed the UN General Assembly on Wednesday, marking the first time any president from his country has done so in almost 60 years. As he spoke, hundreds of people gathered in front of giant screens in Syrian cities and towns to witness the speech while waving the country’s flags.
Ahmad al-Sharaa said Syria is returning to the international community after six decades of dictatorship that killed 1 million people and tortured hundreds of thousands. “Syria is reclaiming its rightful place among the nations of the world,” he told the assembly’s annual gathering of world leaders.
Al-Sharaa became the first Syrian head of state to speak at the United Nations since Noureddine Attasi gave a speech in 1967 shortly after the Arab-Israeli war, during which Damascus lost control of the Golan Heights that Israel later annexed in 1981.
Since the Assad family came to power in Syria in 1970 in a bloodless coup that overthrew Attasi, relations with the United States have been mostly cold as Damascus was an ally of the former Soviet Union. Over the past decades, it was foreign ministers of Syria who represented the country at the UN General Assembly.
The Assad family dynasty’s autocratic, repressive 54-year rule in Syria abruptly collapsed in December, when then-President Bashar Assad was ousted in a lightning insurgent offensive led by al-Sharaa. Assad’s fall marked a major shift in the 14-year civil war.
Al-Sharaa blasted Israel in his speech saying that it did not stop its threats to his country since the fall of Assad adding that its policies “contradict with the international community’s support to Syria and its people” in what endangers the region and could make enter conflicts that no one know how they could end.
