ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - Syria’s transitional president Ahmed al-Sharaa accompanied by Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani arrived in Saudi Arabia’s capital city Riyadh on Sunday, marking his first trip abroad since the toppling of Bashar al-Assad in December.

Sharaa was greeted by Saudi officials upon arrival, according to images from state television Al-Ekhbariya.

According to the broadcaster and Syrian state news agency SANA, the interim president of Syria is expected to meet Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, without specifying when or providing further details. 

Nearly two months after the toppling of Bashar al-Assad at the hands of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in a lightning offensive that took less than two weeks, Sharaa was named the interim president of Syria on Wednesday. 

Saudi Arabia's King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed were among the first to congratulate him on his official appointment.

Ever since Assad’s ouster, the Syrian capital city Damascus has seen a flurry of diplomatic visits worldwide, showing support to help rebuild the war-torn country’s infrastructure and lift daunting sanctions that have severely taken a toll on all aspects of life in the country. 

The new administration in Damascus, led by Sharaa, counts on the Gulf and the West to revive its economy and finance the reconstruction of the country after 13 years of civil war. 

On Thursday, Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, became the first head of state to have visited Damascus, where he stressed "the urgent need to form a government” to represent all the components of the war-ravaged country in a bid to  "consolidate stability and move forward with reconstruction, development and prosperity projects".