Trump eases sanctions for 'fresh start' in Syria

US President Donald Trump on Monday said he would ease sanctions on Syria to help the country make a “new start,” a stance welcomed by Syrian authorities.

“We will have to make a decision on sanctions, which we could very well ease (…) We want to allow [Syria] to have a new beginning,” said the US President at the White House, before leaving for a tour of the Middle East.

The US head of state added that he had discussed the matter with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan , an ally of the new Syrian government, following the December overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad by an Islamist coalition.

Syria is led by an interim president, Ahmad al-Charaa, who led the coalition that ended five decades of Assad family rule.

Damascus has already welcomed Donald Trump's statements, which it considered " an encouraging step towards ending the suffering of the Syrian people ," the Syrian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Syria's new Islamist government is trying to rebuild a country devastated by nearly 14 years of civil war that began in 2011 with the crackdown on pro-democracy protests, and has insisted on lifting international sanctions dating back to the Assad era.

So far, some countries, including the United States, have been reluctant, saying they would first like to see how the new authorities exercise their power, particularly in terms of respect for human rights and minorities, before lifting their sanctions on Syria.

In a report published in February, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) estimated that at the current rate of growth, Syria would not return to its 2010 economic level before 2080 .

UNDP also highlighted that currently nine out of ten Syrians live in poverty and that the country's Gross Domestic Product is less than half of what it was before the civil war.