NEW YORK CITY: The UN Security Council voted on Thursday to lift sanctions on Ahmad Al-Sharaa, effectively removing the Syrian president from the Daesh and Al-Qaeda Sanctions List in a move widely seen as signaling international recognition of the post-Assad political order in Syria. Resolution 2729 was tabled by the US and adopted with 14 votes in favor, zero against and one abstention, by China. It also delists the Syrian interior minister, Anas Hasan Khattab, who was previously designated under the same sanctions regime.

The United States is pushing the U.N. Security Council to end sanctions on Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa and top officials just days before his...

Fourteen of the 15 members of the Security Council, including Russia, voted in favor of the US-drafted resolution