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MbS welcomes dictator Assad
Photo: AL EKHBARIYA TV / via REUTERS
Symbolic politics at the limit: At the summit of the Arab League in Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman gave a warm welcome to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who has been isolated for years. The two met at the start of the summit on Friday in Jeddah with a hug and gave each other a fraternal kiss. Assad seemed relaxed and walked the purple carpet in the coastal city on the Red Sea with a smile. For Assad, it is the first major meeting on the international stage in more than ten years.
A short time later, the actual summit began in a festively decorated hall. Algeria's Prime Minister Aymen Benabderrahmane opened the meeting and handed over the chairmanship to Saudi Arabia. Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Jordan's King Abullah II and Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani also took their seats at the long tables.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also surprisingly attended the summit. Crown Prince Mohammed reaffirmed his support for a peace process between Russia and Ukraine. He also welcomed Assad and said that Syria's return to the Arab League would hopefully bring more stability to the war-torn country and allow Syria to resume its "normal role" in the Arab world.
The League was expected to focus on the conflicts in Sudan, Yemen and Syria. Syria was expelled from the Arab League in 2011 in the wake of the violent suppression of protests and was largely isolated internationally. At the beginning of May, the members of the League decided to resume Syria. The last time Assad took part in a League summit in Libya was in 2010.
Assad's government cracked down on protests in the country and in the ensuing civil war with extreme severity against its own people. For years, Assad rarely appeared in public and officially traveled only to allied Russia and Iran for a long time. Since 2018, however, the United Arab Emirates and, most recently, the powerful Saudi Arabia have been pushing ahead with normalization.
dop/dpa