Syria is located in Middle East and is bordered by Lebanon, the Mediterranean Sea and Cyprus to the west, Israel to the southwest, Jordan to the south, Iraq to the east, and Turkey to the north. Syria was formerly part of the Ottoman Empire, then the French Mandate of Syria, before gaining independence in 1946. The capital, Damascus, was the seat of several empires in antiquity, specifically the Umayyad Caliphate and the Mamluk Sultanate. Today, Syria is lead by President Bashar al-Assad and governed by the Baath Party, which has been in power since 1963. Recently, Syria has been criticized by the United States, European Union and Israel for their support of Hamas and Hezbollah. These political tensions, along with economic policies adopted in the 1960s, have left Syria largely excluded from the global economy. The government has tried, in recent years, to correct this by initiating negotiations for regional free trade agreements and filing a request to beginning the accession process into the World Trade Organization.