MUSCAT: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad visited Oman on Monday, his first official trip to the Gulf country in more than a decade of civil war at home, the Omani foreign ministry said.

The one-day trip to meet with Sultan Haitham bin Tareq came two weeks after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck southeastern Turkiye and northern Syria, killing more than 44,000 people across both countries.

The quake sparked Arab outreach to the internationally-isolated Assad government, which was expelled from the Arab League after war broke out in 2011. Sultan Haitham and Assad “held official talks” at the royal palace in Muscat, Oman’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

The Omani ruler “extended anew his condolences and sincere sympathy to the president and to the brotherly Syrian people for the victims of the devastating earthquake”, it added.

The two leaders discussed regional issues and bilateral ties before holding a “private meeting”, the statement said without elaborating.

Unlike other Arab Gulf states, Oman never severed diplomatic ties with Damascus.

The United Arab Emira­tes and Bahrain both res­tored relations with Assad’s government in 2018.

Assad visited the UAE last year in his first trip to an Arab state since the war began, followed only by Monday’s Oman visit.

Analysts say a diplomatic momentum generated by aid efforts in the quake’s aftermath could bolster Assad’s relations with other countries in the Middle East that have so far resisted normalisation.

Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister said on Saturday a consensus was building in the Arab world that a new approach to Syria would be needed to address humanitarian crises including the quake.

“The status quo is not working and... we need to find some other approach,” Prince Faisal bin Farhan told the Munich Security Conference. “What that approach is, is still being formulated,” he said.

Arab states have poured aid into Syria since the Feb 6 quake killed more than 5,900 people there, according to a tally of UN and Syrian government figures.

Donors have included Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates which both supported rebels seeking to overthrow Assad in the early years of the Syrian conflict.

Sultan Haitham bin Tariq said he looked forward to Syria’s ties with all Arab countries returning to normal, according to a statement from the Syrian presidency.

Oman withdrew its ambassador to Syria in 2012 as other Gulf states downgraded or shut missions there in response to the Damascus government’s crackdown on anti-government protests at the start of the conflict.

But Muscat kept up contacts with Syria, despite pressure from the United States, and reinstated its ambassador in 2020, the first Gulf state to do so.

Since then there have been signs of a shift in the Middle East towards reviving ties with Assad, a change accelerated by the earthquake.

Jordan’s foreign minister made his first trip to Damascus last week and on Feb 7 Assad and Egypt’s President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi spoke by phone for the first time.

The UAE’s foreign minister met Assad in Damascus a week ago, his third such visit since the beginning of the war.

Assad rarely left Syria during the war, travelling only to close allies Russia and Iran whose military support helped Assad turn the tide of the conflict.

Published in Dawn, February 21st, 2023