President Ahmed al-Sharaa received at the People's Palace in Damascus on Wednesday, June 24, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Thomas Brendsen, and the Minister of Asylum and Immigration of the Kingdom, Gispertus van den Brink, according to a statement published by the Presidency of the Republic on its official IDs.

The Presidency did not mention any details of the discussions that took place during the meeting, but only published the news of the reception, accompanied by photos showing the two Dutch ministers and their accompanying delegation, in addition to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Asaad Al-Shaibani and Dr. Hamza Al-Mustafa, the advisor for European affairs at the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, who was appointed to this position earlier this week after his dismissal from the Ministry of Information.

160,000 Syrians in the Netherlands, asylum applications fall to 28%

As soon as the Dutch Minister of Asylum and Migration arrives in Damascus, the case of Syrians in the Netherlands is back in full swing, where more than 160,000 people of Syrian origin live, most of whom have settled since the great wave of refugees after 2011.

This file has witnessed a radical transformation since the fall of the Assad regime in late 2024 and early 2025, with extensive changes in Dutch policies that have affected asylum procedures, return programs, and reunification, as the Dutch authorities tightened the criteria for evaluating asylum applications after the suspension of processing of files in late 2024, and then resumed them in June 2025 according to a system based on individual assessment and the requirement to prove a direct personal risk, rather than relying on the general situation in Syria.

This resulted in an unprecedented decline in acceptance rates, with only 28% of new applications accepted in 2025 compared to 95% in the previous year, with the duration of stay granted reduced to just three years.

The data shows that about 945 Syrians returned from the Netherlands last year as part of voluntary repatriation programs, while about 19,000 people are waiting for the final decision on their files. Despite a sharp drop in initial asylum applications to just 530 in the first quarter of 2026, reunification transactions remained on the rise, with 3,400 Syrians arriving during the same period to join their pre-resident families.

Previous Mutual Visits

Diplomatic relations between Syria and the Kingdom of the Netherlands have witnessed a qualitative transformation since the beginning of 2025, with the escalation of the pace of European openness to Damascus following the fall of the former Syrian regime, where former Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs and Development Ocge de Vries visited Damascus on October 21, 2025, where she met with the Foreign Minister and discussed with him the prospects of economic relations and joint development projects, in addition to exchanging visions on the stability of the region and the revitalization of bilateral cooperation.

On the other hand, the year 2025 witnessed a Syrian diplomatic movement towards the Netherlands, the most prominent of which was the visit of Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani to Amsterdam/The Hague on March 6, 2025, a visit described at the time as "historic" because it paved the way for the current path of opening, and established direct channels of communication between the two sides.

The joint meetings between the delegations of the two countries continued in Geneva within the framework of international coordination focusing on humanitarian files, especially programs to reduce the risks of mines and unexploded ordnance in Syria, reflecting the transition of relations from the level of political contacts to practical multi-track cooperation.