Syria’s President Ahmed Al-Sharaa, in his address to the UN General Assembly, condemns ongoing Israeli strikes in his country, and says Damascus is committed to the 1974 Disengagement of Forces agreement between Israel and Syria.

The United Nations has said that one million Syrian refugees have returned to their country since the fall of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad last December, while warning that funding for humanitarian operations is falling.

Ukraine and Syria formally restored diplomatic relations, President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on Sept. 25 after meeting his Syrian counterpart Ahmed al-Sharaa at the UN General Assembly. “Today Ukraine and Syria signed a Joint Communique on the restoration of diplomatic relations.

On his first appearance at the UN General Assembly, Syria's new president Ahmed al-Sharaa warned that Israeli strikes threaten to destabilize the region, even as he pledged commitment to dialogue and a break from decades of Assad family rule.

Syria and Ukraine restored diplomatic relations Wednesday, as Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa held talks with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the 80th UN General Assembly session in New York.

The Syrian leader’s biggest concern is the sanctions that remain in place on his country. In May Mr Trump announced that he would lift a slew of American ones on Syria. Yet the most suffocating of them, the Caesar Act, is stuck in Congress and is now the subject of political horse-trading.

On September 23, US Special Envoy for Syria Thomas Barrack claimed that Syria and Israel “are close to striking a ‘de-escalation’ agreement in which Israel will stop its attacks while Syria will agree not to move any machinery or heavy equipment near the Israeli border.

Into the flurry of activity in New York this week stepped Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa, on his first-ever trip to the United Nations - and it was quite the diplomatic coup.