Former American ambassador reveals details of his meeting with "Ahmed Al-Shar'a" two years before he assumed the Syrian presidency.
Users of the platform "X" shared a clip of a lecture by the former American ambassador to Algeria and Syria, Robert Ford, in which he talked about a meeting he had with the transitional Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa two years before assuming the Syrian presidency, after receiving an invitation from a British non-governmental organization to help him, in his words, "transition from the world of terrorism to traditional politics."
Ford delivered the lecture titled "The Rebels Triumphed in Syria... Now What?" on May 1st, and it was published by the "Baltimore Council on Foreign Affairs" on their YouTube channel.
During the lecture, he said: "Starting from 2023, a British non-governmental organization specializing in conflict resolution invited me to help them in bringing this young man (referring to al-Sharaa during his Al-Qaeda days) out of the world of terrorism and into the world of traditional politics."
The former American diplomat added: "At first, I was very hesitant to go, and I imagined myself wearing an orange suit with a knife around my neck, but after talking to people who had experienced it, including those who had met him personally, I decided to try my luck."
Regarding the details of their first meeting, Ford explained: "When I met him for the first time, he was still known by his nom de guerre 'al-Julani,' before revealing his true identity (Ahmed al-Sharaa) after taking control of Damascus last December. I sat next to him and said to him in Arabic: 'A million years ago, I never imagined I would be sitting next to you,' to which he looked at me and replied softly: 'Nor did I.'
Ford pointed out that the dialogue between them was "smooth," but he noted that Sharaa "did not apologize for the terrorist operations in Iraq and Syria," explaining that the latter told him that "the tactics and rules he followed in Iraq are not suitable when governing 4 million people (in Idlib)."
The clip gained wide circulation on the "X" platform, where many users interacted with it over the past two days.
