French President Macron in Damascus:

We undertook this trip fully aware of the circumstances. On the French side, we were prepared; on the Syrian side, everything was also organized.

We are under no illusions about the risks, nor about the determination of certain groups to prevent Syria's full return to the community of nations.

We must not allow ourselves to be destabilized or distracted from the importance of the path we are taking.

So we move forward.

WATCH: Sudan Army’s AKINCI drone shot down yet another Chinese-made CH-95 drone supplied to the RSF terror group by the UAE.

Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa with Macron:

I want to salute President Macron for his courage.

As soon as news of the explosions reached him, he immediately declared that the visit would continue and that its program would go ahead as planned.

Certainly, there are many people who are harmed by Syria's success today.

There are those who wanted this country to remain in ruin and destruction, and they are troubled by what Syria is achieving.

The investigations are currently underway, and I believe that, very soon, those responsible for this heinous criminal act will be arrested.

This attack only increases the determination and resolve of the Syrian state—and of everyone who supports it—to continue moving forward with rebuilding Syria.

French President Macron in Damascus:

More than €50 million resulting from the seizure of assets illegally acquired by the family of the former dictator will be returned to Syria.

We are the first country to have carried this legal action through to its conclusion, and we will continue wherever such action is possible.

These funds will be returned to the Syrian people to finance concrete development projects across the country.

French President Macron:

We believe that Syria must be fully sovereign and united, and that all those occupying its territory must leave.

French President Macron:

We apply the same principle everywhere. It is the principle we have defended over the past years in Iraq, through the Baghdad Conferences for Iraqi sovereignty.

It is the principle we defend for Lebanon. It is the principle we defend for Syria. It is the principle we defend for Palestine.

There are no double standards. Otherwise, what credibility would France have when it defends Ukraine's sovereignty against Russia?

That is why we also ask leaders such as President al-Sharaa and others to stand with us in understanding the principles we defend in Ukraine.

The principles of international law do not change according to latitude or longitude.

U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker:

I know I’m saying something that politicians do not want to hear, maybe, but we have to stop sort of looking at defense investments as a burden to society.

If we have decided somehow that we have this threat environment for a long, unpredictable time, let’s do the best of that, because it is actually extremely good engineering. It is GDP-creating. It is tech spin-off-creating activity.

And we can actually—because the interface between civilian capabilities and military or defense-industry capability is now becoming less and less obvious—we can do so much more if we decide to say that, okay, this is actually the future.

And I think some countries like Germany have really gone that direction by actually almost replacing automotive capability industry with defense industries.

French President Macron in Damascus:

We want the French-speaking Christian schools in Syria that the former regime forced to close to reopen.

Finland President Alexander Stubb:

Well, we have to be more independent in some cases. If you, for example, look at storage of personal data, obviously a lot of Europeans are angry that their personal data is stored outside of the EU.

So we have to build our own data centers and our own AI factories so we can actually own the data of our own citizens.

But in the end, there is no such thing as European full autonomy. You will always need to collaborate with our friends in Canada, in the US, in other partnerships around the world.

ASML and other tech companies can play a crucial role both in the US and here.

WATCH: The moment Turkish President Erdogan heard Trump was going to lift the CAATSA sanctions on Türkiye.

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📸 Another photo of Trump and Erdoğan from earlier today.