A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
For the first time in decades, a Syrian leader addressed the United Nations General Assembly. NPR's Michele Kelemen reports on how a former rebel leader who has faced U.N. and U.S. sanctions transformed himself into a global statesman.
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: In his debut on the world stage, Ahmad al-Sharaa said Syria is entering a new chapter after nearly six decades of repressive rule by the Assad family. Through an interpreter, he said under his leadership, Syria will have a government that serves everyone.
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PRESIDENT AHMAD AL-SHARAA: (Through interpreter) A land of ancient civilization and culture deserves to be a state of law protecting everyone, safeguarding rights, guaranteeing freedoms and fostering life to flourish while turning the page of a wretched past.
KELEMEN: Al-Sharaa is turning his own page. As a young jihadi fighter, he helped establish an al-Qaida affiliate in Syria. He later presented himself as a more moderate figure. And in December, he led rebels that forced Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad into exile in Russia.
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AL-SHARAA: (Through interpreter) It was a military operation that was filled with mercy and good and prioritized tolerance and that did not target civilians.
KELEMEN: Unlike, he said, the Assad regime, which used chemical weapons against civilians and uprooted millions of people in a long civil war. But while he presents himself as a unifying figure, al-Sharaa says Israel is making his work harder with its airstrikes and its military operations, which the Israelis say is meant to protect the Druze minority in southern Syria.
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AL-SHARAA: (Through interpreter) And in this context, Israeli strikes and attacks against my country continue. And Israeli policies contradict the international supporting position for Syria, which threatens new crises and struggles in our region.
KELEMEN: The Trump administration has been trying to get Israel and Syria to agree to new security arrangements. The U.S. has also suspended sanctions on Syria. Al-Sharaa is hoping the U.N. will follow suit and lift long-standing sanctions against him. But there are skeptics both at the U.N. and in Syria, says Comfort Ero, who runs a think tank called the International Crisis Group and who was recently in Damascus.
COMFORT ERO: Syrians from across, I would say, the ideological spectrum, especially minority groups, they are wary of the president. They're wary of his jihadi origins. And they see his approach to governance thus so far as exclusionary.
KELEMEN: She says the Syrian leader has shown himself to be a skillful diplomat at the U.N., but he needs to translate that back home and quickly.
ERO: The window in which to, you know, turn all of this goodwill into something meaningful is very short because the pressure is both internal and external to Syria as well.
KELEMEN: Ero says the U.N. can do more, too, by moving its team that focuses on Syria from Geneva to Damascus to advise al-Sharaa on how to build the kind of Syria that he promised on the world stage.
Michele Kelemen, NPR News, the United Nations.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE BEST PESSIMIST'S "DREAMLESS (BONUS)") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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