ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) chief Mazloum Abdi on Tuesday thanked US President Donald Trump for giving Syria “a chance for greatness,” praising Damascus' joining of the US-led global coalition against ISIS while affirming his commitment to integrating the Kurdish-led forces into the Syrian state apparatus. 

The US Embassy to Syria announced on Tuesday that Syria has officially become the 90th partner to join the international coalition to defeat ISIS.

The announcement was made a day after Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa visited the US, where Washington temporarily suspended key Caesar Act sanctions on Damascus and suggested that Syria should join the coalition.

“Syria’s accession to the global coalition against ISIS represents a pivotal step towards enhancing collaborative efforts and bolstering the initiatives aimed at achieving the enduring defeat of ISIS and eliminating its threat to the region,” Abdi said on his X. 

Abdi thanked Trump “for his leadership on Syria and for giving the Syrian people a chance for greatness.”

US Special Envoy to Syria Thomas Barrack earlier welcomed Syria’s admission as the 90th member of the coalition, calling it “a pivotal moment in Syria’s history and in the global fight against terrorism,” he said in a post on X. 

The Kurdish chief affirmed his commitment to “accelerate the integration of the SDF into the Syrian state,” citing his phone call with Barrack discussing Sharaa’s latest meeting with Trump in Washington on Monday.

The Syrian foreign ministry on Monday said that Trump and Sharaa's delegations agreed to proceed with the implemenation of the March 10 agreement signed between Sharaa and Abdi, which seeks to bring the Kurdish-led forces, who have been vital US allies in the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS), into the fold of Damascus. 

The SDF in late October submitted a list of its commanders to the US-led global coalition for integration into the Syrian army.

The meeting on Monday marked the first Syrian leader's visit to the Oval Office since Syria’s independence in 1946, marking a seminal moment for Sharaa, whose political life has traversed from his origins as an Al-Qaeda fighter in Iraq to the leader of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which seized power in Damascus after deposing the regime of Bashar al-Assad in December, to his current role as president.

The meeting came soon after the US State Department removed Sharaa from its terrorism blacklist.

The Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act of 2019, which was suspended temporarily by the US on Monday, was a sanctions system that targeted the Syrian government and those involved in business with Damascus, cutting the country off from the global economy. The law was enacted during the rule of the deposed Baathist regime under Assad. 

In May, Trump met with Sharaa in Riyadh, one day after Trump announced he had ordered the cessation of all sanctions on Syria “in order to give them a chance at greatness.”