Syrian Interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa visited Saudi Arabia in his first trip as the country’s new leader on Sunday in Riyadh, meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman in Riyadh, the Saudi capital.

On Monday, al-Sharaa then performed Umrah, the Muslim voluntary pilgrimage in Mecca, the holiest city in Islam.

The two Arab leaders discussed badly needed economic and humanitarian aid to Syria after 14 years of a destructive civil war, according to Syrian state news agency SANA.

The new Syrian president was accompanied by his foreign minister, Asaad al-Shaibani. 

Al-Sharaa has met with various Middle Eastern leaders including Türkiye, Qatar and Lebanon in the Syrian capital of Damascus. However, going to Saudi Arabia as his first foreign trip may be a message to Iran and its weakened position within the region, according to the Associated Press.

This comes as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a Sunni Islamist rebel group, led a lightning rebel offensive from Syria's northwestern province of Idlib last November, toppling Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad's government. Al-Sharaa was the leader of HTS, which previously had Al-Qaeda links.

HTS and al-Sharaa are both on the terror and sanction lists of the United States and European Union.

However, in January, the U.S. Treasury temporarily lifted a ban on transaction with the new Syrian government, signaling its initial approval of the regime change. For U.S. allies in the Middle East such as Saudi Arabia, this makes it easier to have warm relations with the new administration in Damascus.