Washington: Syria's President Ahmed al-Sharaa arrived in the United States on Saturday for a landmark official visit, his country's state news agency reported, a day after Washington removed him from a blacklist.
Sharaa, whose rebel forces ousted longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad late last year, is due to meet US President Donald Trump at the White House on Monday.
It's the first such visit by a Syrian president since the country's independence in 1946, according to analysts.
The interim leader met Trump for the first time in Riyadh during the US president's regional tour in May.
Washington's envoy to Syria, Tom Barrack, said earlier this month that Sharaa would "hopefully" sign an agreement to join the international US-led alliance against the Islamic State (IS) group.
The State Department's decision Friday to remove Sharaa from the blacklist was widely expected.
State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said Sharaa's government had been meeting US demands including on working to find missing Americans and on eliminating any remaining chemical weapons.
"These actions are being taken in recognition of the progress demonstrated by the Syrian leadership after the departure of Bashar al-Assad and more than 50 years of repression under the Assad regime," Pigott said.
The spokesman added that the US delisting would promote "regional security and stability as well as an inclusive, Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political process."
The Syrian interior ministry announced on Saturday that it had carried out 61 raids and made 71 arrests in a "proactive campaign to neutralise the threat" of IS, according to the official SANA news agency.
It said the raids targeted locations where IS sleeper cells remain, including Aleppo, Idlib, Hama, Homs, Deir ez-Zor, Raqqa and Damascus.
After his arrival, Sharaa met with representatives from Syrian organizations in Washington, according to his country's official media.
