RIYADH: Syria ended over a decade of exile from the Arab League on Monday as its officials took part in a preparatory session ahead of Friday’s summit in Saudi Arabia.

“I... take this opportunity to welcome the Syrian Arab Republic to the League of Arab States,” Saudi finance minister Mohammed al-Jadaan told the meeting, which was broadcast live by state TV channel Al Ekhbariya.

Jadaan added that he was “looking forward to working with everyone to achieve what we aspire to”, as the camera panned to the Syrian delegation.

It was the first time Syrian officials participated in an Arab League meeting since the body suspended Damascus in November 2011 over its violent crackdown on protests which spiralled into a conflict that has killed more than 500,000 people and displaced millions.

UAE invites Assad to COP28 summit

Earlier this month, the pan-Arab body officially welcomed back Syria’s government, securing President Bashar al-Assad’s return to the Arab fold. Saudi King Salman has invited Assad to attend Friday’s summit in the Red Sea coastal city of Jeddah, which would be his first since the 2010 meeting in Libya.

UAE invitation

On Monday, the State Media said, the United Arab Emirates has invited Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to attend the United Nations climate summit in Dubai later this year.

Assad’s first invitation to a global summit since the start of Syria’s war.

The Emirati charge d’affaires in Syria, Abdul Hakeem al-Nuaimi, has handed Assad an invitation from UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan “to attend the COP28 climate conference”, official news agency SANA reported.

Heads of Western states who have imposed sanctions on Syria over the civil war and oppose normalisation with Damascus usually attend the COP summits.

US President Joe Biden and France’s Emmanuel Macron were among those who attended last year’s talks in Egypt. Assad has held onto power and clawed back lost territory with crucial support from Iran and Russia.

The UAE re-established ties with Syria in 2018 and has been leading the recent charge to reintegrate Damascus into the Arab fold.

‘Arab solidarity’

Riyadh, which cut ties with Assad’s government in 2012 and had long openly championed the Syrian leader’s ouster, confirmed last week that work would resume at the two countries’ respective diplomatic missions.

But while Syria’s frontlines have mostly quietened, large parts of the north remain outside government control, and no political solution to the conflict is in sight.

Top diplomats from nine Arab countries discussed the Syria crisis in Saudi Arabia last month, and five regional foreign ministers including Syria’s met in Jordan on May 1.

The Arab League’s secretary-general, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, said on Monday that Syria’s return could revive “the principle of Arab solidarity”, according to a statement delivered by his deputy, Hossam Zaki.

‘Serious challenges’

But not every country in the region has been quick to mend ties with Assad.

Qatar said this month it would not normalise relations with Assad’s government but also noted this would not be “an obstacle” to Arab League reintegration.

Aboul Gheit said the “positive atmosphere” created by the end of some disputes in the region “should not push us away from the reality that the Arab region has been witnessing for years, which is the accumulation and overlapping of serious challenges”.

Among these, he added, was “a new wave of displacement”, a likely reference to the month-old conflict in Sudan, which has prompted nearly 200,000 people to flee the country and displaced hundreds of thousands more.

Published in Dawn, May 16th, 2023