A hmed al-Sharaa, Syria’s president, spoke to The Economist on January 31st in Damascus. The conversation has been translated and lightly edited for clarity. You can read our analysis of the interview here.

Syria's Ahmed al-Sharaa said on Monday it would take between four and five years to hold presidential elections, the first time he has laid out a timeline for the vote since he was named transitional president last week.

Syria’s Ahmed al-Sharaa has arrived in Saudi Arabia and met Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) on his first foreign trip since being named president of the transitional government earlier this week.

He had spent the day with the leaders of Syria’s myriad armed factions, trying to persuade them to disband. Over seven weeks after the fall of Damascus, the fate of these groups is still uncertain. His aides claim that all militias will be dissolved and then absorbed into a new national army.

Sharaa, met Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh on Sunday in his first foreign trip as Syrian leader, in a sign of the major shifts under way in regional alliances.

Sharaa, better known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, was declared Syria's head of state for a transitional phase and empowered to form a new legislative council, state media