The meeting comes as the new authorities seek to reassure minorities of their safety in post-Assad Syria.
Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa met with senior Christian clerics on Tuesday, amid calls for the head of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) to guarantee minority rights after taking power earlier this month.
“The leader of the new Syrian administration, Ahmed al-Sharaa, is meeting with delegates from the Christian community in Damascus,” the Syrian General Command said in a statement on Telegram.
The statement included photos of the meeting with Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican clergy.
Earlier on Tuesday, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot called for an inclusive political transition in Syria that guarantees the rights of the country's various communities.
He expressed his hope that “Syrians can regain control of their destiny”.
But for this to happen, the country needs “a political change in Syria that unites all communities in their differences, upholding basic rights and fundamental freedoms,” said Barrot during a visit to Lebanon with Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu.
Barrot and Lecornu also met with Lebanese army chief Joseph Aoun and visited United Nations peacekeepers along the southern border, where a fragile deal ended heavy fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in late November.
'Good' talks with SDF
Since taking power, the new Syrian leadership led by al-Sharaa who was formerly a member of al-Qaeda, has repeatedly tried to reassure the minority population that they will not be harmed, although there have been isolated incidents that have sparked protests.
On December 25, thousands protested in many parts of Syria after a video showing an attack on an Alawite shrine in the north of the country went viral.
A day ago, hundreds of protesters protested in the streets of Christian areas of Damascus against the burning of a Christmas tree near Hama in central Syria.
Before civil war broke out in 2011, Syria was home to about a million Christians, according to analyst Fabrice Balanche, who says the number has dropped to 300,000.
Earlier, a Syrian official told AFP news agency that al-Sharaa had “good” talks with representatives of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on Monday.
The talks were al-Sharaa's first with SDF commanders since his rebels overthrew longtime dictator Bashar al-Assad in early December and came as the SDF clashed with Turkish-backed groups in northern Syria.
The United States-backed SDF led a military campaign that pushed ISIL (ISIS) fighters from their last stronghold in Syria in 2019.
But Turkiye, who has long had ties to the al-Sharaa group of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, says that the SDF is led by members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been active for ten years in the Turkish revolution, and is called a “terrorist group”. in Turkey and the US.
On Sunday, al-Sharaa told Al Arabiya television that the SDF should be integrated into the new national army.
“Weapons must be in the hands of the state only. “Whoever is armed and suitable to join the Ministry of Defense, we will accept him,” he said.
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