Sunday 24 / November / 2024
Cairo: Arab League foreign ministers voted on Sunday to readmit Syria into the organisation, after a suspension that lasted over a decade due to the region-wide condemnation of President Bashar Assad's crackdown on the 2011 protests-turned-civil-war.
Ministers held a closed meeting at the League's headquarters in Cairo, where the unfolding situation in Sudan was also on the agenda.
"Government delegations from the Syrian Arab Republic will resume their participation in Arab League meetings," the group's foreign ministers said.
Some Arab League members did not attend the session on Sunday. The most notable absentee was Qatar, which has backed Syria's opposition against Assad.
Syria's gradual return to Arab diplomacy
For much of the past 12 years, Syria was shunned from most diplomatic interactions in the region.
But over the past five years that has slowly been changing, with countries like the United Arab Emirates and Jordan quietly reestablishing contact.
More recently, there has been an acceleration in that process, with Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mikdad paying visits to Arab capitals including Cairo, Amman and Tunis.
It was after a last month's visit to Saudi Arabia that Arab countries got together in Jeddah to discuss moves to end Syria's isolation, which has lasted for over a decade.
Saudi Arabia, which had initially supported Assad's opposition, was among the staunchest opponents to Syria's return.
However, the rich Sunni kingdom in March announced the restoration of diplomatic ties with Shiite Iran, after years of suspended relations.
Tehran has been a strong Assad backer.
Despite the changes in the Arab stance, the US State Department said earlier this week that it will not "not normalize relations with the Assad regime and does not support others normalising" until UN-facilitated political progress has been made.
