Tue 18 Apr 2023:
The meeting between Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is the biggest move yet toward easing Syria’s ten-year isolation from the rest of the region.
According to Syrian official media, Prince Faisal arrived in Damascus on Tuesday, a week after his Syrian counterpart had visited Saudi Arabia.
The visit is the first by a Saudi official to Syria’s capital since the start of the country’s civil war in 2011.
PHOTOS: Saudi foreign minister meets Syria’s Assad in Damascus pic.twitter.com/waOub6ARkr
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The Saudi foreign ministry said in an online statement that the visit showed the kingdom’s desire to find a political solution to Syria’s conflict that would preserve the country’s “Arab identity, and return it to its Arab surroundings”.
Since the start of the crisis, in 2011, Al-Assad has been politically marginalized in the region, but in the past week, there has been a flurry of diplomatic activity as regional relations have shifted as a result of Saudi Arabia and Damascus’s ally Iran’s decision to restart relations.
The visit takes place less than a week after Saudi Arabia was visited by Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad, who was also on his first such trip since the conflict started.
Last week, diplomats from nine Arab countries met in the Saudi city of Jeddah to discuss ending Syria’s long spell in the diplomatic wilderness and its possible return to the 22-member Arab League after Damascus was suspended in 2011.
The diplomats stressed the “importance of having an Arab leadership role in efforts to end the crisis” in Syria, according to a statement by the Saudi foreign ministry, but media reports indicate that several countries are still holding out against Syria’s return to the Arab League.
Rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia have backed opposite factions in a number of regional crisis zones, including Yemen, and compete for influence in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq.
During a recent visit to Moscow, al-Assad told Russia Today that “Syria is no longer a scene of Saudi-Iran conflict.”
More than 500,000 people have been killed in Syria’s civil conflict, and over half of the country’s pre-war population has been displaced.
SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES
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