ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - “We were once on the battlefield, and now we meet in dialogue,” said Syrian interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa to former CIA Director David Petraeus and top US military commander whose tenure in Iraq coincided with Sharaa’s imprisonment - then known by his nom de guerre, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani - by American forces over ties to al-Qaeda.
The two met for a discussion at the 2025 Concordia Annual Summit in New York on Monday, on the sidelines of Sharaa’s participation in the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).
“It is good that we were once on the battlefield and now meet in dialogue,” Sharaa said, adding that “the past had its own rules and context.” He acknowledged that “there were mistakes, as in any struggle, but our commitment to justice and truth is what brought us here.
“That is why we now sit together, not as enemies, but as friends,” Sharaa said.
Born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in 1982 to a Syrian family from the Golan Heights, Sharaa grew up in Damascus and joined al-Qaeda in Iraq in 2003. He was detained by US forces in Iraq in 2005 and imprisoned for five years in Abu Ghraib and Camp Bucca, west and south of Baghdad, respectively.
This period coincided with Petraeus's time as a prominent military commander in Iraq.
After his release, Sharaa founded the al-Nusra Front, which was al-Qaeda's branch in Syria. He later broke ties with al-Qaeda and established the now-dissolved Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, which in early December led a coalition of opposition groups that toppled Syria’s longtime dictator Bashar al-Assad.
In late December, Washington dropped the $10 million reward it previously offered for Sharaa’s capture and in early July, it revoked the Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designation of the HTS.
Middle East analyst Ceng Sagnic told Rudaw the Petraeus-Sharaa sit-down was “mind-blowing,” hoping that it does not serve as “a legitimization of the extremist ideology, but [rather] a moderation of the extremist ideology.”
Meanwhile, Yaser Tabbara, a lawyer and co-founder of the Syrian Forum - a consortium of non-profits established in the wake of the 2011 civil war in Syria - lauded the seeming thaw in US-Syria relations.
“If anyone can deliver a semblance of a balance of security and preservation of the rights of communities and Syrian individuals, it would probably be someone like President Sharaa,” Tabbara said.
Sharaa was appointed interim president in late January, pledging to form an “inclusive transitional government” committed to safeguarding the rights of Syria’s ethnic and religious groups.
However, in the months that followed, he has repeatedly come under fire over policies described as exclusionary and centralized, specifically by Syria’s minority groups.
In March, Sharaa signed a 53-article constitutional declaration that preserves Syria’s name as the “Syrian Arab Republic,” makes Arabic the sole official language, and stipulates Islamic jurisprudence as a primary source of legislation. It also requires that the president be Muslim.
The interim constitution further grants Sharaa exclusive executive power, including the sole authority to appoint and dismiss cabinet ministers.
Middle East analyst Hussain Abdul-Hussain told Rudaw that Sharaa’s approach reflects his disbelief in Syria having room for “leaders other than him.”
Namo Abdulla contributed to this report.
