After 12 years of diplomatic isolation and continuous war, Syria is close to returning to the Arab incubator through Saudi Arabia , which is organizing a regional meeting on Friday to discuss the return of Damascus to the League of Arab States.

In November 2011, the League of Arab States (18 members out of 22) suspended Syria's participation in its meetings after Damascus refused to end the violent crackdown on popular protests that began in March 2011.

At that time, Western countries and Turkey welcomed this step, while Russia, Iran, Iraq and Lebanon criticized it.

The Arab League imposed economic sanctions on Syria, including freezing commercial transactions with it and stopping flights to and from it.

These sanctions came after months of US and European economic measures against Syrian leaders and Syrian economic interests, as well as condemnations by the United Nations.

In February 2012, the Gulf Cooperation Council states (Bahrain, Kuwait, Sultanate of Oman, Saudi Arabia and the UAE) announced the withdrawal of their ambassadors from Syria.

In 2013, the Syrian opposition occupied Syria's seat during the Arab League summit.

On April 12, 2023, the Syrian Foreign Minister made a surprise visit to Saudi Arabia, the first since the beginning of the war in his country.

The meeting of nine Arab countries in Jeddah on Friday to discuss the Syrian issue falls within the framework of Riyadh's desire for calm with Tehran, which supports Damascus.

In March, Saudi Arabia and Iran reached an agreement on resuming relations. This came as Riyadh seeks to get out of the civil war in Yemen, in which Riyadh and Tehran participate, either directly or through mediation.

The earthquake that occurred on February 6, 2023, and devastated vast areas in Turkey and Syria, is another reason that allowed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to resume contacts with Arab countries that sent humanitarian aid to Damascus.

A Saudi aid plane landed in February in Aleppo, the country's second largest city, the first Saudi plane to reach Syria since the start of the war.

Likewise, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi called his Syrian counterpart, in a conversation that was the first between the two presidents in 12 years, although relations were not completely severed between Cairo and Damascus. At the end of February, the Egyptian foreign minister was sent to Damascus on a "humanitarian" visit.

After the earthquake, the Syrian president received the foreign minister of Jordan, a country that maintained frosty relations with Syria during the war.

And in October 2021, Jordan's King Abdullah II called the Syrian president.

Since the end of 2018, the UAE has reopened its embassy in Damascus. Assad also visited the UAE in March 2022, his first visit to an Arab country since the war.

During his meeting with Assad in March 2023, Emirati President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan considered that it was time for Damascus to return to the Arab incubator.

Meanwhile, the two countries held discussions about resuming their consular services.

On April 12, 2023, Syria and Tunisia announced their intention to resume diplomatic relations. Tunisia had appointed a consular representative in Damascus since 2015.

On the other hand, in February 2023, Al-Assad visited the Sultanate of Oman, for the first time in 12 years of war. The sultanate was the only Gulf country to maintain formal diplomatic relations with Syria.

At the end of December 2022, the Turkish and Syrian defense ministers met with their Russian counterparts in a trilateral meeting in Moscow.

This was the first official meeting of this level between Ankara and Damascus since the beginning of the war, which caused discontent among the Kurds in northern Syria and their ally Washington.

However, al-Assad considers that rapprochement with Turkey requires an "end of the Turkish occupation" of the Syrian lands.
km/nash