“This shows that what we need are political solutions, not another wave of instability and displacement,” Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, wrote in a Twitter post.
Grandi, who is currently in Lebanon, is headed to Syria in observance of World Refugee Day.
Lebanon, which hosts about 1.5 million Syrians, has developed a phased plan to repatriate them, according to a report by German outlet DW. Up to 300,000 Syrians are expected to return from Lebanon by September.
Under the plan, each returning refugee will receive $100 if they agree not to seek asylum in Lebanon again.
The German government is also considering resuming repatriations to Syria, although the country’s Foreign Ministry described the security situation there as “extremely unstable.”
Ahmed al-Sharaa became the President of Syria in January, one month after Assad’s collapse. Previously, al-Sharaa was a member of an al-Qaeda-affiliated insurgent group that fought against U.S. forces in Iraq after the 2003 invasion.
He later led Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an Islamist group which played a key role in toppling Assad’s regime.