ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Saturday received a visiting delegation headed by two US congressmen on an unofficial visit, marking the first trip to Damascus by American legislators since the fall of Bashar al-Assad in December.

Republican congressmen Corey Mills and Marlin Stutzman, representatives for Florida and Indiana respectively, were received by Sharaa at the presidential palace in Damascus.

Representative Mills told reporters it was “very important to come here to be able to see it for myself, to be with various governmental bodies, to look at the needs of the Syrian people, to look at the needs for the nation for stability.”

The visit came in an unofficial capacity, with the Trump administration as of yet not recognizing the Sharaa government, which came to power following a lightning offensive by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) late last year.

President Sharaa, who until December had a US-imposed bounty of $10 million USD for his arrest over his head for his involvement in various militant Islamist groups, is expected to call for relief from American sanctions on the country.

Mills said that “ultimately, it’s going to be the president’s decision” if sanctions are lifted or not, though he noted that congressmen such as himself may advise US President Donald Trump.

Washington has already enacted tentative moves to facilitate the new government in Syria, removing the bounty on Sharaa and lifting some sanctions relating to essential services, with the US administration feeling out its capacity to work with the interim government.

The new government has seen the allocation of salient portfolios to key Sharaa allies and drawn criticism for its lack of inclusiveness.

The Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) in a statement accused the new cabinet of “failing to provide fair and genuine representation” to the country’s religious and ethnic minorities.

The Congress members’ trip was sponsored by the Syrian American Alliance for Peace and Prosperity, an NGO that purports to seek to foment “a sustainable political, economic, and social partnership between the people of Syria and the United States.”