The Trump administration issued orders on Friday that it said would effectively lift sanctions on Syria, after President Donald Trump this month pledged to unwind the measures to help the country rebuild after a devastating civil war.

The Treasury Department issued a general license that authorizes transactions involving the interim Syrian government led by President Ahmed al-Sharaa, as well as the central bank and state-owned enterprises, Reuters reported.

The general license, known as GL25, “authorizes transactions prohibited by the Syrian Sanctions Regulations, effectively lifting sanctions on Syria,” the Treasury said in a statement.

“GL25 will enable new investment and private sector activity consistent with the President’s America First strategy,” the statement said.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio also issued a 180-day waiver under the Caesar Act to ensure that sanctions do not obstruct investment and to facilitate the provision of electricity, energy, water and sanitation and enable humanitarian efforts, he said in a statement.

“Today’s actions represent the first step in delivering on the President’s vision of a new relationship between Syria and the United States,” Rubio said, adding that Trump had made clear his expectation that sanctions relief would be followed by action by the Syrian government.

The White House said after Trump met Sharaa last week that the president asked Syria to adhere to several conditions in exchange for sanctions relief, including telling all foreign militants to leave Syria, deporting what he called Palestinian terrorists, and helping the U.S. prevent the resurgence of ISIS.

“President Trump is providing the Syrian government with the chance to promote peace and stability, both within Syria and in Syria’s relations with its neighbors,” Rubio said.

‘POSITIVE STEP’

Syria welcomed the sanctions waiver early on Saturday, which the Foreign Ministry called a “positive step in the right direction to alleviate the country’s humanitarian and economic suffering.”

Syria is keen on cooperating with other countries “on the basis of mutual respect and non-interference in internal affairs. It believes that dialogue and diplomacy are the best path to building balanced relations,” the ministry said in a statement.

Most of the U.S. sanctions on Syria were imposed on the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and key individuals in 2011 after civil war erupted there. Sharaa led militias that overthrew Assad in December.

The general license names Sharaa, formerly sanctioned under the name Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani, among the people and entities with whom transactions are now authorized. It also lists Syrian Arab Airlines, the Central Bank of Syria and a number of other banks, several state oil and gas companies and the Four Seasons Damascus hotel.

Trump unexpectedly announced last week that he would lift the sanctions at the behest of Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, a major U.S. policy shift he made before meeting briefly with Sharaa in Riyadh.

It is hoped that easing Syria sanctions will clear the way for greater engagement by humanitarian organizations working in Syria, encouraging foreign investment and trade as the country rebuilds. But the U.S. has imposed layers of measures against Syria, cutting it off from the international banking system and barring many imports, and the potential for sanctions on a country to return can chill private-sector investment.

The U.S. first put the country on its list of state sponsors of terrorism in 1979 and since then has added additional sets of sanctions, including several rounds following the country’s 2011 uprising against Assad.

Iranian and U.S. negotiators resumed talks on Friday in Rome to resolve a decades-long dispute over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Iranian media reported, despite Tehran warning that clinching a new deal might be insurmountable amid mutually exclusive demands.

The stakes are high for both sides. President Donald Trump wants to curtail Tehran’s potential to produce a nuclear weapon that could trigger a regional nuclear arms race and perhaps threaten Israel. The Islamic Republic, for its part, wants to be rid of devastating sanctions on its oil-based economy.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi and Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff were expected to lead a fifth round of talks, through Omani mediators.

Both Washington and Tehran have taken a tough stance in public over Iran’s intensifying uranium enrichment programme, which could potentially give it scope to build a nuclear warhead, even though Tehran says it has no such ambitions and the purposes are purely civilian.

Iran insists the talks are indirect, but U.S. officials have said the discussions – including the latest round on May 11 in Oman – have been both “direct and indirect”.

Ahead of the talks, Araqchi wrote on X: “…Zero nuclear weapons = we Do have a deal. Zero enrichment = we do NOT have a deal. Time to decide.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Thursday that Trump believes negotiations with Iran are “moving in the right direction”.

Tehran and Washington have both said they prefer diplomacy to settle the impasse.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Tuesday that Washington is working to reach an accord that would allow Iran to have a civil nuclear energy programme but not enrich uranium, while admitting that achieving such a deal “will not be easy”.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the last say on Iran’s state matters, rejected Washington’s demands that Tehran stop refining uranium as “excessive and outrageous”, warning that the talks are unlikely to yield results.

Among remaining stumbling blocks is Tehran’s refusal to ship abroad its entire stockpile of highly enriched uranium – possible raw material for nuclear bombs – or engage in discussions over its ballistic missile programme.

Iran says it is ready to accept some limits on enrichment, but needs watertight guarantees that Washington would not renege on a future nuclear accord.

(Reuters)

Three children were among at least five people killed when a suicide bomber struck an army school bus in Pakistan’s restive Balochistan province, the military said on Wednesday, in an attack that Pakistan blamed on Indian proxies, Reuters reported.

About 40 students were on the bus, which was headed to an army-run school, and several sustained injuries, said Yasir Iqbal, administrator of Khuzdar district, where the incident took place.

Pakistan’s military and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif swiftly condemned the violence and accused “Indian terror proxies” of involvement, although they did not share any evidence linking the attack to New Delhi.

“Planners, abettors and executors of this cowardly Indian-sponsored attack will be hunted down and brought to justice,” the military’s media wing said.

India rejected Pakistan’s accusations.

“In order to divert attention from its reputation as the global epicentre of terrorism and to hide its own gross failings, it has become second nature for Pakistan to blame India for all its internal issues,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

India also declared an official of the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi persona non grata, the second such expulsion in a week, for “indulging in activities not in keeping with his official status.”

The Pakistani charge d’affaires was summoned and given a warning to ensure that Pakistani officials do not misuse their privileges and status, the ministry added.

Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry made a similar move early on Thursday as an official of the Indian High Commission in Islamabad was declared persona non grata, it said in a statement posted on social media.

The Indian charge d’affaires was summoned to Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry to stress that Indian officials in Pakistan should not “misuse their privileges and status in any manner,” the statement added.

Tensions remain high after India and Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire on May 10. Diplomats have warned the truce is fragile, following the most dramatic escalation of hostilities between the nuclear-armed neighbours in decades, read the report.

Both have traded accusations of supporting militancy on each other’s soil – a charge that each denies. The latest escalation, in which the two countries traded missiles, was sparked when India accused Pakistan of supporting a militant assault on tourists in the Indian portion of the contested region of Kashmir. Islamabad denies any involvement.

In Wednesday’s attack in Balochistan, at least three children and two adults were killed, the army said. Local television showed images of three dead girls from middle and high school.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the blast, reminiscent of an attack on a military school in the northern city of Peshawar in 2014 that killed more than 130 children.

That attack was claimed by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, an ultra-radical Islamist militant group.

Attacks by separatist groups in Balochistan have risen in recent years. In March, the Baloch Liberation Army blew up a railway track and took passengers from a train hostage, killing 31 civilians, soldiers and staff.