Faisal Mekdad, the Foreign Minister, affirmed Assad’s attendance to the Arab summit on Wednesday, declaring that Syria “cannot be excluded from any such gathering.”
The minister has arrived in the kingdom for a pre-summit foreign ministerial meeting.
Ahmed Aboul Gheit, the Secretary-General, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, the Saudi Foreign Minister, and Ahmed Attaf, the Algerian Foreign Minister, have all expressed their approval of Syria’s involvement.
At the summit in Jeddah this year, Syria will be re-admitted to the 22-member Arab League after a 12-year suspension. The invitation to take part in the summit has been extended by Saudi King Salman to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
In November 2011, the Arab League suspended the membership of Syria, a founding member, due to claims of a crackdown on opposition protests by Damascus. Syria responded to this decision with criticism, calling it “illegal and a violation of the organization’s charter.”
In March, Riyadh and Damascus agreed to restore diplomatic ties and reestablish embassies after being separated for over a decade.
In April, the Saudi foreign minister paid a visit to Damascus to meet with Assad – the first such visit since 2011.
In recent years, terrorist groups have lost control of virtually all regions in Syria due to the support of Russia and Iran for the Syrian government forces.
It is anticipated that Assad will be visiting other Arab states in the near future in addition to his already completed visits to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Oman.
The signing of a deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia in China, which enabled the restoration of diplomatic relations and the re-establishment of embassies after seven years of estrangement, marked the beginning of the detente process. This agreement has been seen as a positive step in uniting Muslim states to help resolve regional issues, as it creates a platform for increased synergy among them.
Recently, a quadrilateral meeting was held among the top diplomats of Russia, Syria, Turkey, and Iran in an effort to normalize relations between Ankara and Damascus.
A growing number of regional countries, such as the UAE, Egypt, Jordan, and Oman, have expressed a willingness to re-establish diplomatic relations with Syria despite the efforts of Israel and certain Western states to isolate it.
