SEOUL, Jan 6, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will meet his European counterparts Thursday in Rome on Syria, as the West looks to engage the new Islamist-led leadership.

Blinken will "meet with European counterparts to advocate for a peaceful, inclusive, Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political transition", a State Department statement said as he visited Seoul on Monday.

The State Department did not immediately specify the participants.

Blinken, on a trip that will also take him to Japan and France, will later join President Joe Biden as he pays a farewell visit to Rome that includes an audience with Pope Francis.

Islamist-led forces toppled longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in a lightning offensive last month after 13 years of brutal war.

Western powers have since been cautiously hoping for greater stability in Syria, a decade after the war triggered a major refugee crisis that shook up European politics.

The French and German foreign ministers on Friday visited Syria, although the trip was overshadowed when new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa shook the hand only of France's Jean-Noel Barrot, a man, and not Germany's Annalena Baerbock, a woman.

Senior US diplomat Barbara Leaf met Sharaa last month and said that the United States was lifting a bounty that has been on its head.

She also welcomed "positive messages" he has made, including on protection of minorities, and said he had promised that Syria would not pose a threat to neighbouring countries, as Israel pounds Syrian military sites.