After the military victory with the support of Russia and Iran (even if the war in Syria is still going on and part of the country is beyond his control), Bashar al-Assad seals diplomatic victory today. Twelve years after the start of the war, which has already claimed the lives of 500,000 people and led to his suspension from the Arab League, the Syrian president returns to the top of the organization at the invitation of Saudi Arabia, which has hosted the meeting. organizes in Jeddah. and supported your enemies for years.
Today’s summit is the first in which Assad has participated since the 2010 summit, which took place in Libya. The Syrian president arrived in Jeddah yesterday and was welcomed at the airport by the vice emir of the Mecca region, Prince Badr bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz. According to pro-government media, bilateral meetings with other leaders were planned – it is not known which ones.
There were several factors that led to the doors reopening to Assad and Syria, whose conflict has been frozen for about three years. One of the factors was a tragedy of natural origin. The earthquakes that hit Turkey in early February, killing 50,000 people in that country, also hit northern Syria, where the death toll is estimated to have passed 6,000. Several Arab countries sent aid to Syria, paving the way for a dialogue with the Assad regime (including diplomatic visits that had not taken place in over 12 years) and prompting the president to thank the “Arab brothers”.
The most important factor, however, was the resumption of relations, suspended since 2016, between old rivals Riyadh and Tehran, who supported opposing sides in the war in Syria. The surprise deal between the predominantly Sunni Saudis and the predominantly Shiite Iranians was announced in March after secret talks in Beijing. And its effects are being felt across the region, where the two countries have always supported opposing sides of conflict – for example, in Yemen, where dialogue was opened to try to achieve peace.
After this, the Syrian president has ceased to exist persona non grata and on the 7th, the heads of diplomacy of the 22 countries of the Arab League decided to end the suspension. Qatar, one of the main supporters of the Syrian opposition, did not want to be an “obstacle” and break the consensus, but reiterated that it will not normalize bilateral relations with Damascus. Each country has the right to maintain its position and decide individually whether or not to restore diplomatic relations.
The beginning, not the end
The suspension of the Arab League had been declared in late 2011 in response to the violent crackdown on so-called Arab Spring protests, which escalated into civil war. In addition to the more than 500,000 deaths (according to figures from human rights organizations, the United Nations spoke of the deaths of just over 300,000 civilians a year ago), the conflict forced 22 million people to flee their homes, leaving six million refugees dead.
However, the return of Assad, driven by Riyadh, does not mean all is well. “The return of Syria does not mean that the problem in Syria is solved. Syria has accepted that its return to the League is part of the solution.”, the organization’s secretary general, the Egyptian Ahmed Aboul-Gheit, told Saudi television Al-Arabiya. Arab countries agreed form a ministerial commission to establish a “direct dialogue” with the Syrian government “to reach a comprehensive solution” to the conflict. In practice, the return is “the beginning, not the end of the question,” Aboul-Gheit said shortly after the decision to reopen the doors to Syria.
One of the concerns has to do with the fate of the refugees, many of whom live in Turkey, Jordan or Lebanon. But within the Arab countries there is also concern that Syria has turned into a narco-state, with the mass production of Captagon – an amphetamine-type stimulant, which was made in Germany in the 1960s as a drug for attention deficit disorder or narcolepsy. declared a psychotropic substance in 1986. With the war in Syria and Western sanctions cutting off funding sources, experts say the Damascus regime benefited from drug trafficking, particularly to the Gulf states. Syria denies.
The US, which had lobbied for Syria’s suspension from the Arab League, said it did not deserve a return to the organization – in the past it has even threatened the regime with retaliation if it crossed the Arab League’s “red lines” . use of weapons chemical weapons against the population, which Assad will have done (he denies) without any consequences. “We are not going to try to normalize relations with Assad and this regime,” diplomat Antony Blinken said. The European Union has said it will not normalize relations – and lift sanctions – until Assad stops repressing the population.
Source: DN
