Syria’s Assad will attend this Friday his first Arab League summit in 13 years, his foreign minister said Wednesday, signalling regional reintegration after more than a decade of war.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will make his comeback to the Arab League after years of isolation in the region, since its brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protests in 2011 triggered a war that has killed more than 500,000 people.
Following a preparatory meeting on Wednesday, Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad told reporters, Assad would attend Friday’s event in Jeddah in person.
Washington, however, said it did “not believe that Syria merits readmission to the Arab League”.
Beyond rekindling ties with the Assad government, the summit is expected to devote energy to two conflicts: a month-long war between two generals in Sudan and the eight-year civil war in Yemen.
It is taking place in the same city where representatives of the two Sudanese camps have been locked in negotiations for a week and a half brokered by Saudi and US officials.
In Yemen, Saudi Arabia is pushing for a peace deal with Iran-backed Huthi rebels after eight years at the helm of a military coalition that failed to defeat them on the battlefield.
Recent diplomatic shifts were accelerated by a surprise Chinese-brokered normalisation deal with Iran announced on March 10.
Less than two weeks later, Saudi Arabia announced it had begun talks on resuming consular services with Iran ally Syria, the first public step in a rapprochement that has since seen the countries’ foreign ministers exchange visits.
Yet Assad’s presence in Jeddah on Friday does not guarantee progress on resolving Syria’s brutal war. Nor is it clear that the pan-Arab body can extract concessions on issues like the fate of Syrian refugees or surging trade in the drug captagon.
The same could be said of the Sudan and Yemen files.
Roger Barake, with AFP
