The United States has suspended sanctions against Syria for a further six months following a historic meeting between Presidents Ahmed al-Sharaa and Donald Trump in Washington, DC.

The US Treasury Department announced the extension of its suspension of the so-called Caesar sanctions on Monday as Trump met al-Sharaa behind closed-doors at the White House.

The meeting capped a stunning year for al-Sharaa, a 43-year-old former al-Qaeda commander who toppled the longtime autocratic leader of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, and who now wants to unify his war-ravaged nation and end its decades of international isolation.

The Syrian presidency said al-Sharaa and Trump held talks “focusing on bilateral relations between Syria and the United States, ways to strengthen and develop them, and a number of regional and international issues of common interest”.

For his part, Trump heaped praise on al-Sharaa after the meeting.

“He comes from a very tough place, and he’s a tough guy. I like him,” Trump said of the Syrian president.

“We’ll do everything we can to make Syria successful because that’s part of the Middle East. We have peace now in the Middle East – the first time that anyone can remember that ever happening.”

But Trump also gave a nod to al-Sharaa’s controversial past. “We’ve all had rough pasts,” he said.

Al-Sharaa later told Fox News his association with al-Qaeda was a matter of the past and was not discussed in his meeting with Trump. Syria was now seen as a geopolitical ally of Washington and not a threat, he added.

The meeting between the two leaders mark the first time a Syrian president has visited Washington, DC. It came six months after their first meeting in Saudi Arabia, where Trump announced plans to lift sanctions, and just days after the US said al-Sharaa was no longer a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist”.