Assad invited to May Arab League summit

Saudi Arabia plans to invite Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to the Arab League (LAS) summit, to be held in Riyadh on May 19. On this subject informed Reuters, citing three sources familiar with the Saudi authorities’ plans.
Two of them claim that Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan will visit Damascus in the coming weeks to present Assad with an official invitation to the summit. Saudi government and foreign ministry press offices did not respond to Reuters requests for comment.
Gamal Rochedi, spokesman for the Arab League’s secretary general, said the organization “is not aware of every step” that league member states are taking with each other bilaterally. “We should not be informed of the proposed (Assad) visit in advance,” Roshdi said.
Reuters calls Assad’s alleged presence at the Arab League summit “the most important step in the process of his rehabilitation in the Arab world” since 2011, when Syria was expelled from the Arab League. According to the agency, if Syria returns to the Arab League, it will be a “mainly symbolic” event – but at the same time a sign of “changes in the regional approach to the Syrian conflict”.
In March, Reuters, citing sources, claimed that Riyadh and Damascus had reached an agreement to reopen their embassies after Ramadan. The Saudi Foreign Ministry did not confirm this information, but acknowledged that negotiations on the resumption of “consular services” with the Syrian Foreign Ministry are indeed underway.
Another agency source familiar with Assad’s upcoming invitation to the Arab League summit said the list of demands Saudi Arabia has presented to Syria as conditions for establishing relations has been discussed since. more than a year. It includes close cooperation in the field of border security and the fight against drug trafficking.
According to one of the sources of Reuters, the visit of the Saudi Foreign Minister to Syria (or vice versa – his Syrian counterpart Faisal Mekdad in Riyadh) has been planned for a long time, but its discussion has been postponed due to the earthquakes that have occurred. in Turkey and Syria in February.
Contacts with Assad have also been renewed by Egypt, which Reuters describes as an “Arab League heavyweight”. The day before, on April 1, the Syrian Foreign Minister paid an official visit to Cairo for the first time in more than 10 years and, during a meeting with the Egyptian Foreign Minister, confirmed the will of Damascus to strengthen bilateral cooperation.
An Egyptian security source told Reuters the purpose of the visit was to gain support from Egypt and Saudi Arabia to bring Syria back into the Arab League. Some countries, including the United States and Qatar, continue to oppose the normalization of relations with the Assad regime, describing its actions during the conflict on Syrian territory as brutal and calling for “seeking progress towards a political solution” for Syria.
Reuters notes that contacts between Saudi and Syrian officials began to gain momentum after a landmark agreement reached in March between Saudi Arabia and Iran to restore ties. “The rapprochement between Riyadh and Tehran is part of the large-scale processes taking place in the region against the backdrop of growing tensions between Iran and Israel,” the agency said.