IRBIL, Kurdistan, Iraq: Thirteen years after attending a major Arab League gathering, President Bashar Assad led a Syrian team to the 32nd summit, held this time in the Saudi city of Jeddah.
Syria was readmitted to the pan-Arab group earlier this month, and Assad’s participation in Friday’s conference comes amid broader Saudi-led attempts to heal relations between Damascus and other Arab countries.
In his remarks to participants in a summit preparation meeting on Wednesday, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud adopted a decidedly conciliatory tone. “We welcome Syria’s return to the Arab League,” he said, emphasizing the importance of developing new channels to address “the challenges facing us.”
The Kingdom is playing a vital role in Syria’s return to the Arab fold, which began with the supply of humanitarian relief to the war-torn country in the aftermath of the devastating Turkiye-Syria earthquakes on February 6.
Saudi Arabia and Syria want to re-establish diplomatic relations and begin flights. While Saudi Arabia, which severed ties with the Assad regime in 2012, is not the first Arab country to re-establish relations with Syria, it is leading the current diplomatic effort, which many observers say has the potential to yield big results.
