2023-05-07 14:57:11
The Arab foreign ministers decided, Sunday, May 7, in Cairo, to reintegrate the Syrian regime into the Arab League after having dismissed it in 2011 for the repression of a popular uprising which degenerated into a bloody war.
Syria had been suspended in response to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s brutal crackdown on opponents after the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings. China and Russia blocked attempts to sanction Assad in the Security Council of the United Nations, inciting the United States and the European Union to impose unilateral restrictions against him, his government and his supporters.
“The delegations of the government of the Arab Republic of Syria will again sit in the Arab League”explains the text voted by all the ministers, in a meeting behind closed doors, at the headquarters of the Arab League, in Cairo.
Diplomatically isolated since 2011, Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad recently emerged from his persona non grata status and some observers believe that he could even attend the annual summit of heads of state of the pan-Arab organization in Jeddah on May 19. . Created more than 80 years ago, the Arab League exercises little political weight on the world stage, but the measure has a symbolic dimension.
It is also a spectacular reversal knowing that in 2013, the anti-Assad opposition was able to occupy the seat of Syria during an Arab League summit in Doha, Qatar.
Normalization of relations
Arab countries had supported rebels at the start of the war, which has since become a battleground between foreign forces, and which has left around half a million dead and millions of refugees and displaced.
Several states, including Saudi Arabia and Egypt, have recently reconnected with Syria, although some, such as Qatar, remain opposed to full normalization without a political solution to the Syrian conflict.
If the diplomatic warming had been brewing for months, Mr. Assad benefited from the surge of global solidarity after the devastating earthquake of February 6, which left thousands dead in Turkey and Syria.
The president and his ministers thus saw parade in Damascus the representatives of many Arab countries which had refused until then to normalize their relations with Syria – some even making their departure from power a condition sine qua non.
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Damascus is now betting on full normalization with the Arab countries, in particular the wealthy Gulf monarchies – once the greatest allies of the opposition to Mr. Assad – to finance the costly reconstruction of the country with its infrastructure ravaged by repeated conflicts.
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