This handout picture released by the Egyptian Foreign Ministry shows Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry (left) meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad (right) in Damascus on Feb 27, 2023. (EGYPTIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY SPOKESPERSON / AFP)
A number of Arab states have extended their support to Syria following the twin earthquakes that devastated parts of the country on Feb 6, and experts say the moves represent a genuine attempt by these countries to rebuild relations with the war-torn nation.
They say countries across the Middle East are now focused on rebuilding their economies after years of conflict and the mess left by external powers, including the failure of the opposition in Syria to present a viable alternative to President Bashar al-Assad’s government.
“External powers created a lot of mess in the Middle East. Now, Middle Eastern countries are trying – in their own space by their own means – to build their economies,” Arhama Siddiqa, an expert on the Middle East and research fellow at the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad, in Pakistan, told China Daily.
Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud was widely quoted as saying that consensus was building in the Arab world that isolating Syria “was not working” and that dialogue with Damascus was needed at some point to at least address humanitarian issues and the return of refugees
After the recent earthquakes, she said, even Arab states which previously had difficult relations with Syria now see this as an opportunity to improve ties. A case in point was Egypt’s foreign minister meeting with Assad in Damascus, she added.
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Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry met Assad in Damascus on Feb 27 – the first visit by a top Egyptian diplomat to the country since the Syrian civil war broke out 12 years ago. Parts of Syria have been held by different factions since 2011, with the northwestern part of the country under rebel control.
During their meeting, Shoukry conveyed a message from Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, who reaffirmed his country's support for Syria and willingness to boost and develop relations between the two countries.
Shoukry also said his country considered the Syrian-Egyptian relationship an essential pillar that protects Arab countries.
Relations between Syria and Egypt were briefly cut during the Muslim Brotherhood-led government of then president Mohamed Mursi. Egypt reopened its embassy in Syria in 2013, after the army removed Mursi from power, but kept Assad at a distance.
Syria was a member of the Arab League, a 22-member regional organization formed in Cairo in 1945, until its suspension in 2011 following street protests.
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In recent years, however, a number of Arab states, most prominently the United Arab Emirates, have changed their approach and begun to normalize ties with Syria.
In November 2021, Assad met UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed in Damascus, making him the first Emirati official to visit since the 2011 uprising that escalated into a multifaceted war. The two discussed “exploring new horizons” to boost ties and commercial engagements then.
The two also recently met in January with Sheikh Abdullah affirming the commitment and keenness of the UAE to support the efforts made to find a political solution to the Syrian crisis.
And in the wake of the quake, Assad visited Oman and met with Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said, state news agency SANA reported. The two reportedly discussed fraternal ties and areas of joint cooperation, agreeing to enhance bilateral collaboration in various sectors.
At the 59th Munich Security Conference in Germany, this month, Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud had acknowledged that the Arab world needed a new approach toward Syria.
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He was widely quoted as saying that consensus was building in the Arab world that isolating Syria “was not working” and that dialogue with Damascus was needed at some point to at least address humanitarian issues and the return of refugees.
“Day by day, the Middle East is going to become a region that is shaped by regional diplomacy rather than international developments. I think the Arab states' outreach and President Bashar al-Assad's maneuvers are all part of this,” Gokhan Ereli, Gulf studies coordinator at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, in Türkiye, told China Daily.
He described the Arab states’ reaching out as a “limited but necessary engagement”, as there had been prior efforts to reach out to the Syrian government even before the disaster diplomacy. But as the “US is still against Assad”, this had limited the engagement.
“But we are talking about a regional normalization and no one should (fall) behind regional normalization periods (and) that is why it is a ‘necessary engagement’,” said Ereli.
Mehran Kamrava, a professor of government at Georgetown University Qatar, and head of the Iranian Studies Unit at the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, believes there are three main reasons why the Arab states are changing their policies toward Syria.
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First, he said, civil wars have “a natural cycle” where they reach a height “and then they slowly peter out because civil wars are impermanent by nature”.
Civil wars are “very intense but eventually they die down on their own because of the nature of war. People want to go back to their routines,” Kamrava said.
He said the second reason is that Assad “has defied all expectations and stayed in power” as “we have not seen mass defections of the Syrian military”, and the Syrian state “has pretty much stayed intact”.
Third, the Arab governments’ realignment of their foreign policies toward Syria after 12 years of civil conflict shows that they “have finally decided that perhaps the Syrian opposition is not worth the expenditure”.
“Because of the inability of the opposition to present a united front, the inability of the opposition to present a viable alternative to the Assad government, it is being abandoned,” said Kamrava.
