Bashar al-Assad at Arab League summit

Zoom Image

Bashar al-Assad (in a dark suit) is greeted by officials in Saudi Arabia

Photo: - / AFP

Spectacular return: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who has been isolated for a long time, has arrived in Saudi Arabia for the Arab League summit. Assad landed in the coastal city of Jeddah on the Red Sea on Thursday, according to a report by the state agency Sana. The summit will take place in Jeddah on Friday. "Syria would never miss an important summit," Syria's Foreign Minister Faisal al-Mikdad told the newspaper "The National" about Assad's participation.

Founded in 1945, the Arab League is an organization with 22 members. The aim is to achieve even greater cooperation, for example in politics and business, as well as to mediate conflicts. In addition to the conflicts in Sudan and Yemen, the annual summit on Friday is likely to focus primarily on the situation in Syria. For example, the return of Syrian refugees, reconstruction and the containment of drug smuggling are being discussed.

On Thursday, Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Tunisia's President Kais Saied, Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, among others, arrived in Jeddah.

Assad was severely isolated internationally for more than ten years. His government brutally suppressed protests in Syria in 2011 and used harsh violence against its own people in the ensuing civil war. Assad rarely appeared in public and officially traveled only to the allied countries of Russia and Iran. The Arab League suspended Syria's membership in 2011.

For some years now, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Bahrain, Oman and, most recently, Saudi Arabia have been pushing ahead with normalization with Assad. In the Syrian civil war, most of the neighboring states had supported the opposition. After twelve years of war, however, the view prevailed that Assad was still the dominant force in the country. His troops control about two-thirds of Syria with allies. At the beginning of May, Syria was readmitted to the Arab League.

dop/dpa