The US Treasury Department on Monday issued a final rule removing sanctions on Syria, following President Donald Trump’s earlier order to dismantle Washington’s sanctions regime against Damascus.

In a notice, the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said it was scrapping the Syrian Sanctions Regulations from the Code of Federal Regulations “as a result of the termination of the national emergency on which the regulations were based and further changes to the policy of the United States towards Syria.”

The move comes after Trump signed an executive order terminating a US sanctions program on Syria, to help end the country’s isolation from the international financial system and building on Washington’s pledge to help it rebuild after a devastating civil war. 

The order dismantled the existing US sanctions architecture on Syria and terminated the national emergency first declared in 2004. It also revoked five executive orders issued by previous administrations that formed the foundation of the sanctions program against Damascus.

During a trip to Riyadh in May, Trump said that he would order the lifting of all sanctions on Syria at the request of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. 

In Riyadh, Trump met al-Sharaa, the first meeting between a US and Syrian head of state since 2000. The US president said al-Sharaa, previously designated as a terrorist by the US, had “a real shot at holding it together” and is a “young, attractive guy, with a very strong past.”