Representatives from all 15 member states of the United Nations Security Council planned to travel the Middle East on Wednesday for the body’s first official visit to Syria and Lebanon. The two conflict-ridden nations have preoccupied the Council for decades and pitted two of its major powers, Russia and the United States, against each other.
The trip comes at a pivotal time for the region. Syria is coming up on the anniversary of the fall of the dictator Bashar al-Assad on Dec. 8. And Lebanon is navigating a fragile cease-fire between Hezbollah and Israel and continued attacks by Israeli forces on Hezbollah targets.
“It’s a crucial time for the region and a crucial time for these two countries,” Slovenia’s ambassador to the United Nations, Samuel Zbogar, said at a news briefing on Monday. Mr. Zbogar is leading the trip because his country holds the rotating presidency of the Council this month.
He added that it was an “important visit in the sense of expressing support and solidarity with people in both countries and learning about the challenges and conveying the messages also on the path forward that the Council would like to see in both countries.”
During the four-day trip, the representatives will stop in the Syrian capital, Damascus; the Lebanese capital, Beirut; and south Lebanon, along the border with Israel where U.N. peacekeepers, known as UNIFIL, are stationed. Diplomats are expected to meet with senior political and military officials of both countries, as well as U.N. representatives.
During a one-day visit to Damascus, members of the Council will meet with Syria’s president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, a notable recognition given that, until very recently, he had been designated a terrorist by the Council. In November, the Council adopted a resolution to remove sanctions against Mr. al-Sharaa to facilitate his visit with President Trump at the White House.
Syria’s 13-year civil war had long been the focus of the Security Council’s work, including churning out resolutions to end the conflict, investigating chemical attacks by Mr. al-Assad’s forces and the Islamic State, and overcoming hurdles to open the borders to deliver humanitarian aid to areas under the control of Syria’s opposition forces.
The war also put two of the Council’s permanent members on opposing sides. Russia entered the conflict by using its fighters jets to assist Mr. al-Assad’s forces, and the United States trained and armed opposition forces. Now, both countries are engaging diplomatically with Mr. al-Sharaa, who, in addition to visiting Washington, also went to Moscow in October and met with President Vladimir V. Putin.
“The Council’s visit is notable: They are going to go there and talk to the man himself and talk about the issues that concern them and determine to what degree al-Sharaa’s plans fall in line with what they would like to see in Syria,” said Andrew Tabler, who served as the White House’s Syria director during Mr. Trump’s first administration and is currently a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
In Lebanon, they will meet with the president, the prime minister and the Shiite speaker of Parliament, and travel south to see UNIFIL’s headquarters and the commander of the armed forces. Hezbollah’s disarmament will be a topic of discussions, diplomats said.
The Security Council’s last trip to the region was in 2019, when it visited Iraq and Kuwait. Official trips by the Council are typically difficult to organize because all 15 members must approve the trip and the details of its itinerary. Such trips to the Middle East are even more uncommon because of security concerns.
Analysts said that this trip was noteworthy because the United Nation’s presence in both Lebanon and Syria was going to change. U.N. peacekeepers will end their mandate in Lebanon in 2026 after five decades of keeping a buffer zone at the Israeli-Lebanese border. In Syria, the Council must figure out the United Nation’s role in the country, given that the war is officially over and previous resolutions have to be updated.
“This trip will inform the Council’s approach as it shepherds through these changes,” said Maya Ungar, a U.N. analyst for the International Crisis Group.
Israel’s continued attacks on Syria, especially in the occupied Golan Heights, where U.N. disengagement forces are stationed, have alarmed the global agency and Council members. Stéphane Dujarric, the U.N. spokesman, said on Tuesday that they remained “deeply concerned” about Israel’s repeated attacks in the Golan Heights and called them a violation of Syria’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.
Farnaz Fassihi is the United Nations bureau chief for The Times, leading coverage of the organization. She also covers Iran and has written about conflict in the Middle East for 15 years.
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