US President Donald Trump met with the interim president of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa, which is the first such meeting between the leaders of the two countries in the last 25 years, PA Media reports.

The meeting, which took place on the sidelines of Trump's summit with the leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council, marks a major turn of events for Syria, which recently toppled its longtime leader Bashar al-Assad.

Also, the talk was significant given that al-Sharaa, who went by the name Abu Mohammad al-Julani, has ties to al-Qaeda and had joined the rebels fighting against US forces in Iraq before joining the war in Syria.

Earlier, Trump had said that he will begin to lift the US sanctions on Syria.

The US president had said that he was encouraged to take this step by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.