Arab League reinstates Syria’s membership after 12 years
Middle East, News May 8, 2023 1 Comment on Arab League reinstates Syria’s membership after 12 yearsWith Bashar Al Asad’s evident victory in Syria’s ongoing internal conflict, Damascus is on a path to normalizing relations with other Arab nations after decade-long political isolation. The foreign ministers of the Arab League nations agreed to reinstate Syria’s membership in the organization after 11 years of suspension.
Top diplomats from the Arab League nations gathered in the organization’s headquarters in Cairo, Egypt, on May 7, 2023. Foreign ministers voted to decide on Syria’s return to the organization as a member. The conflict in Sudan was also on the agenda at the summit.
Syria’s membership was revoked in 2011 after the country’s President Bashar Al Assad ordered a crackdown on protestors in the same year. Since then, the country has fallen into civil unrest that resulted in the death of nearly half a million people and displaced another 23 million.
During a press conference on Sunday, Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit confirmed that Syria has been reinstated into the Arab League. He added that a follow-up meeting would be held to work towards a resolution to the Syrian crisis. He emphasized that the decision to establish normal relations between Syria and other Arab countries is a matter of each country’s sovereignty.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Samer Shoukry said that only an Arab-led “political solution without foreign dictates” can end the ongoing conflict, restoring Syria’s unity and stability and allowing refugees and the internally displaced to return.
The decision comes after the foreign ministers of Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan met for talks in the Jordanian capital on May 1, to discuss the possibilities of bringing Assad’s government back into the Arab fold. The Amman meeting was one of the latest efforts between Syria and its Arab neighbors to normalize ties with the Assad regime after its evident victory in Syria.
The decision to add Syria back into the Arab League comes only a few days ahead of the Arab League Leaders’ Summit that is set to be held in Saudi Arabia on May 19. After Syria’s normalization of relations with its fellow Arab nations, it is expected that Syrian President Bashar Al Assad would also attend the summit.
While several Arab states, including the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, pushed Syria’s rehabilitation into the organization, some states, Jordan, Kuwait, and Qatar, have opposed Al Assad’s presence in the Arab League Leaders’ Summit saying that an invitation before Damascus agrees to negotiate a peace plan would be premature.
Despite the Arab world’s increasing acceptance of Assad’s regime in Syria, the U.S. has maintained that it would not change its position on matters related to Bashar Al Assad, largely due to his affiliation with the Russian and Iranian governments.
The U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said that Washington will not normalize its relations with Syria’s Bashar Al Assad government. He said it during a call with Jordanian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Ayman Safadi on May 5.
Damascus remains under heavy sanctions from the U.S., as Washington aims to isolate the Assad regime in response to its widely documented human rights violations during the era of conflict. The U.S. has discouraged its allies on numerous occasions from moving closer to Al Assad’s government as it does not see it to be legitimate leadership for Syria.
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[…] is growing cooperation with the Syrian leadership. Syria’s Bashar Al Assad has also started to mend relations with other Arab leaders as Syria has been accepted back into the Arab League after more than a decade-long suspension. All […]