The meeting came after Trump—who is in the middle of a three-country tour of the Middle East—delivered a speech on Tuesday in which he announced his plan to lift U.S. sanctions on Syria in support of "a new government that will hopefully succeed in stabilizing the country and keeping peace.”

The impact of Trump’s statement, which he said would give Syria “a chance at greatness” after the December overthrow of Bashar al-Assad, had an almost immediate effect, as the Syrian pound strengthened against the US dollar by about 25 percent,

The leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday offered rare bipartisan support for an executive action this week by President Donald Trump — the lifting of longstanding U.S. sanctions on Syria in a bid to offer the Arab country’s new government a chance after 14 years of civil war.