Why Syria’s return to Arab fold is seen as a win-win proposition

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The participation of Syria follows its readmission into the pan-Arab body earlier this month and amid broader Saudi-led efforts to repair relations between Syria and other Arab countries. (Supplied)
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Updated 21 May 2023
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Why Syria’s return to Arab fold is seen as a win-win proposition

  • Ending of isolation chimes with Saudi Arabia’s push for region’s stability and economic growth, analysts say
  • Move could facilitate the beginning of much-needed reconstruction and renewed trade

IRBIL, Iraqi Kurdistan: Thirteen years after President Bashar Assad attended a major Arab League meeting, a Syrian delegation led by him has taken part in the 32nd summit, this time in the Saudi city of Jeddah.

Assad’s participation in Friday’s summit follows Syria’s readmission into the pan-Arab body earlier this month and amid broader Saudi-led efforts to repair relations between Damascus and other Arab countries.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud struck a distinctly conciliatory tone in his address on Wednesday to participants in a preparatory meeting for the summit. “We welcome the return of Syria to the Arab League,” he said while stressing the need for devising new mechanisms to deal with “the challenges facing us.”

The Kingdom is playing a critical role in Syria’s return to the Arab fold, which began with the delivery of humanitarian aid to the war-ravaged country in the aftermath of the devastating Feb. 6 Turkiye-Syria earthquakes. 

Saudi Arabia and Syria intend to resume work at their respective diplomatic relations and resume flights. While Saudi Arabia, which cut ties with the Assad government in 2012, is not the first Arab country to re-establish relations with Syria, it is spearheading the current diplomatic drive, which many analysts believe has the potential to produce significant outcomes.

“I think Saudi Arabia played the role of ‘normalizing’ normalization,” Ryan Bohl, a senior Middle East and North Africa analyst at the risk intelligence company RANE, told Arab News. “Countries such as Egypt, the UAE and Bahrain were already pushing for normalization, but they all seemed like outliers without Saudi support.

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Syrian President Bashar Assad received an invitation to the Arab League summit in Jeddah.

The invitation from King Salman was delivered by Saudi diplomat Nayef bin Bandar Al-Sudairi.

The invitation came 12 years after Syria’s Arab League membership was suspended.

“As the biggest Gulf Arab state with tremendous political and economic clout in the region, Riyadh’s blessing on normalization helped accelerate the trend,” he said. “In terms of benefits, most of them are long-term. In the immediate term, Saudi Arabia benefits from the appearance of being a peacemaker resolving issues through diplomacy.”

In the “longer run,” Bohl expects the Kingdom to help kickstart Syria’s reconstruction and “play a major role in rebuilding the country and potentially building up influence there.”




Syrian President Bashar Assad meeting in Damascus with Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Jordan, Nayef bin Bandar Al-Sudairy ahead of the recently concluded Arab Summit in Jeddah. (Syrian Presidency Telegram Page / AFP)

For Syria, the combination of diplomatic normalization and regional rehabilitation puts it on the “path of potentially gaining some sort of new economic ties with the outside world” that could facilitate the beginning of much-needed reconstruction and renewed trade.

The Arab League had suspended Syria in November 2011 over the Assad government’s crackdown on protests which began earlier that year and which morphed into a war that has killed more than 500,000 people, displaced millions and battered the country’s infrastructure and industry.

“The Saudi role has been key to Syria’s return to the bosom of the Arab world,” Joshua Landis, director of both the Center of Middle East Studies and the Farzaneh Family Center for Iranian and Arabian Gulf Studies at the University of Oklahoma, told Arab News.

Saudi Arabia’s push for stability and economic growth in the Middle East will help bring to fruition Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s vision of “turning the Kingdom into a business and tourist hub” for the region.

“Syria’s rebuilding is key to building a better region that is more stable and prosperous,” he said.

Landis believes the Syrian move will advance the goal of “cementing Saudi Arabia’s role as the leader of the Arabs and the larger Middle East.”

“Now that the Saudi leadership has come to an understanding with Iran, there is no reason not to do the same in Yemen and Syria,” Landis said. “It is a win for Saudi Arabia.”

Both analysts view the Jeddah summit of the pan-Arab body as a potentially consequential one. “I think it will be one of several events that will be significant,” Bohl of RANE said. “At this point, it’s just a degree of how much more normalized Syria can get among its former adversaries. The next big breakthrough would be somehow getting past the US sanctions regime.”

For his part, Landis described the event as significant “even though the Arab League has been known for its insignificance.”

Syria’s normalization with a majority of Middle Eastern states could also help to improve the domestic humanitarian situation and even restore a degree of stability not seen in over a decade.




A girl walks near tents at Atmah Internally Displaced People (IDP) camp, in rebel-held town of Afrin, Syria May 19, 2023. (REUTERS)

“Normalization will ease humanitarian aid for places affected by the February earthquakes and in rebel-held territory,” Bohl said. “It could speed along some of the reconciliation agreements necessary to see a peaceful end to the civil war by encouraging rebel groups to engage in concessions to Damascus. It might also signal to Washington that its mission in Syria needs to be better defined and given a time limit.”

Nevertheless, both analysts concede that significant challenges and obstacles remain. The US remains opposed to lifting its sanctions on Syria. Landis describes those sanctions as the “great barrier” to rebuilding Syria.

“Arab countries will now have to decide how they want to chip away at Western sanctions and defy the West’s efforts to maintain a strict boycott of Syria,” he said.




Men wait for customers at a market in Syria's northern city of Raqqa on December 23, 2022, amid soaring inflation and ongoing economic crisis. (AFP)

Readmission into the Arab League is the first step toward stabilizing Syria and jumpstarting its economy, which has been severely paralyzed by over a decade of civil war and sanctions. Landis summed up the process as a “humble beginning.”

“The real challenge for the Arab League and Saudi diplomacy will be whether it can get the West to loosen sanctions and help facilitate the return of trade, the restoration of Syria’s energy sector and electric grid,” he said. 

“Until that happens, Syrians will continue to live in misery and privation.”

 


US embassy in Tripoli denies report of planned relocation of Palestinians to Libya

Updated 18 May 2025
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US embassy in Tripoli denies report of planned relocation of Palestinians to Libya

  • Palestinians vehemently reject any plan involving them leaving Gaza

TRIPOLI: The US embassy in Libya denied on Sunday a report that the US government was working on a plan to relocate Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Libya.
On Thurdsay, NBC News said the Trump administration is working on a plan to permanently relocate as many as one million Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Libya.
NBC News cited five people with knowledge of the matter, including two people with direct knowledge and a former US official.
“The report of alleged plans to relocate Gazans to Libya is untrue,” the US embassy said on the X platform.
The Tripoli-based interionationally-recognized Government of National Unity was not available for immediate comment.
Trump has previously said he would like the United States to take over the Gaza Strip and its Palestinian population resettled elsewhere.
Palestinians vehemently reject any plan involving them leaving Gaza, comparing such ideas to the 1948 “Nakba,” or “catastrophe,” when hundreds of thousands were dispossessed of their homes in the war that led to the creation of Israel.
When Trump first floated his idea after taking the presidency, he said he wanted US allies Egypt and Jordan to take in people from Gaza. Both states rejected the idea, which drew global condemnation, with Palestinians, Arab nations and the UN saying it would amount to ethnic cleansing.
In April, Trump said Palestinians could be moved “around to different countries, and you have plenty of countries that will do that.”
During a visit to Qatar this week, Trump reiterated his desire to take over the territory, saying he wanted to see it become a “freedom zone” and that there was nothing left to save.
Trump has previously said he wants to turn Gaza into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”


Libya’s PM says eliminating militias is ‘ongoing project’ as ceasefire holds

Updated 18 May 2025
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Libya’s PM says eliminating militias is ‘ongoing project’ as ceasefire holds

  • The United Nations Support Mission in Libya expressed concern on Friday about the escalation of violence in Tripoli, calling on parties to protect civilians and public property

TRIPOLI: Libyan Prime Minister Abdulhamid Al-Dbeibah said on Saturday that eliminating militias is an “ongoing project,” as a ceasefire after deadly clashes this week remained in place.
“We will not spare anyone who continues to engage in corruption or extortion. Our goal is to create a Libya free of militias and corruption,” Dbeibah said in a televised speech.
Dbeibah is the country’s internationally recognized leader in the west, based in Tripoli.
After Dbeibah on Tuesday ordered the armed groups to be dismantled, Tripoli was rocked by its fiercest clashes in years between two armed groups. The clashes killed at least eight civilians, according to the United Nations.
The government announced a ceasefire on Wednesday.
It followed Monday’s killing of major militia chief Abdulghani Kikli, widely known as Ghaniwa, and the sudden defeat of his Stabilization Support Apparatus group by factions aligned with Dbeibah.
SSA is under the Presidential Council that came to power in 2021 with the Government of National Unity of Dbeibah through a United Nations-backed process.
SSA was based in the densely populated Abu Salim neighborhood.
GNU’s Interior Ministry said in a statement that nine decomposed corpses were found in a morgue refrigerator in Abu Salim-based Al-Khadra hospital. It said SSA never reported them to authorities. The PM’s media office posted a video of Dbeibah greeting the security force protecting the Prime Ministry Building. It said he later received delegations from elders to discuss Tripoli’s situation and what he called “successful security operation in Abu Salim.”
“The Prime Minister stressed that this operation falls within the state’s fixed vision to eliminate armed formations outside the police and army institutions,” the media office said.
On Friday, at least three ministers resigned in sympathy with hundreds of protesters who took to the streets calling for Dbeibah’s ouster.
Dbeibah did not comment on their resignations. “The protests are annoying, but I’ve put up with them. I know some of them are real, but a lot of them are paid,” he said.
The United Nations Support Mission in Libya expressed concern on Friday about the escalation of violence in Tripoli, calling on parties to protect civilians and public property.
Libya has had little stability since a 2011 NATO-backed uprising ousted longtime autocrat Muammar Qaddafi. The country split in 2014 between rival eastern and western factions, though an outbreak of major warfare paused with a truce in 2020.
While eastern Libya has been dominated for a decade by commander Khalifa Haftar and his Libyan National Army, control in Tripoli and western Libya has been splintered among numerous armed factions.
A major energy exporter, Libya is also an important way station for migrants heading to Europe, while its conflict has drawn in foreign powers including Turkiye, Russia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.
State-oil firm NOC said on Friday that its operations at oil facilities are proceeding as normal, with oil and gas exports operating regularly.


Israel says it intercepted missile from Yemen

Updated 18 May 2025
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Israel says it intercepted missile from Yemen

CAIRO: The Israeli military said on Sunday that it intercepted a missile that was launched from Yemen toward Israel.
Sirens sounded in several areas in Israel, the military added.
Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis have continued to fire missiles at Israel in what they say is solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, although they have agreed to halt attacks on US ships.
Israel has carried out strikes in response, including one on May 6 that damaged Yemen’s main airport in Sanaa and killed several people.


Syria announces commissions for missing persons, transitional justice

Updated 18 May 2025
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Syria announces commissions for missing persons, transitional justice

  • A decree signed by interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa and released by the presidency announced the formation of an independent “national commission for missing persons”

DAMASCUS: Syria on Saturday announced the formation of a national commission for missing persons and another for transitional justice, more than five months after the ouster of longtime ruler Bashar Assad.
Syria’s new authorities have pledged justice for victims of atrocities committed under Assad’s rule, and a five-year transitional constitution signed in March provided for the formation of a transitional justice commission.
The fate of tens of thousands of detainees and others who went missing remains one of the most harrowing legacies of Syria’s conflict, which erupted in 2011 when Assad’s forces brutally repressed anti-government protests, triggering more than a decade of war.
A decree signed by interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa and released by the presidency announced the formation of an independent “national commission for missing persons.”
The body is tasked with “researching and uncovering the fate of the missing and forcibly disappeared, documenting cases, establishing a national database and providing legal and humanitarian support to their families.”
A separate decree announced the formation of a national commission for transitional justice to “uncover the truth about the grave violations caused by the former regime.”
That commission should hold those responsible to account “in coordination with the relevant authorities, remedy the harm to victims, and firmly establish the principles of non-recurrence and national reconciliation,” according to the announcement.
The decree noted “the need to achieve transitional justice as a fundamental pillar for building a state of law, guaranteeing victims’ rights and achieving comprehensive national reconciliation.”
Both bodies will have “financial and administrative independence” and act over all of Syrian territory, according to the decrees signed by Sharaa.
In December, an Islamist-led coalition toppled Assad after five decades of his family’s iron-fisted rule and nearly 14 years of brutal war that killed more than half a million people and displaced millions more.
Tens of thousands of people were detained and tortured in the country’s jails, while Assad has been accused of using chemical weapons against his own people.
Rights groups, activists and the international community have repeatedly emphasized the importance of transitional justice in the war-torn country.
In March, Sharaa signed into force a constitutional declaration for a five-year transitional period.
It stipulated that during that period, a “transitional justice commission” would be formed to “determine the means for accountability, establish the facts, and provide justice to victims and survivors” of the former government’s misdeeds.
This week, prominent Syrian human rights lawyer Mazen Darwish told AFP that lasting peace in Syria depended on the country building a strong judicial system giving justice to the victims of all crimes committed during the Assad era.


Three killed in strike near displacement camp in Gaza, charity says

Updated 17 May 2025
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Three killed in strike near displacement camp in Gaza, charity says

  • Strike hit just 100 meters from main entrance of Hope Camp 4, a site Action for Humanity operates for displaced civilians

GAZA: A strike near a displacement camp in Deir Al-Balah, central Gaza, has killed three people, according to the humanitarian organization Action For Humanity.

In a statement released on Saturday, the charity said the bombing occurred at approximately 3:30 p.m. local time, striking just 100 meters from the main entrance of Hope Camp 4, a site it operates for displaced civilians.

The organization said the victims included a displaced resident, a relative of a woman living in the camp, and a member of the family that made the land available for use as a displacement site.

“This was not just an attack on civilians, it was an attack on humanitarian infrastructure,” Action For Humanity said.

“Striking areas where displaced families are seeking safety is a blatant violation of international humanitarian law and must be condemned in the strongest possible terms.”

No further casualties or damage were reported among the camp’s other residents, but the group warned of the “deep and lasting” psychological toll on the community.

Action For Humanity said it continues to provide support to those affected and called for the protection of humanitarian sites and safe, unhindered access for aid delivery.

“Our operations in Gaza remain active,” the statement added. “We urgently call for the protection of all humanitarian sites and for immediate, unhindered access to deliver life-saving aid to those in desperate need.”