AMMAN (Dispatches) – Jordan is set to host a meeting of foreign ministers from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Egypt and Syria on Monday to continue their talks on formulating a solution to crisis in Syria.
Sinan al-Majali, a spokesperson for Jordan’s Foreign Ministry, said on Sunday that the meeting in Amman “comes in continuation of the consultative meeting held in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on April 14.”
The latest talks were aimed at “building on the outcomes of the communications these countries made with the Syrian government within their proposals and the Jordanian initiative to reach a political solution to the crisis in Syria,” he said.
Following the meeting in Jeddah, the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the diplomats discussed the efforts underway to reach a political solution that would preserve Syria’s stability and territorial unity.
Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad will also take part in the meeting with his regional counterparts, as various Arab states race to mend fences and resume their ties with the Damascus government.
The foreign ministers of the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Egypt, Iraq and Jordan agreed at the summit in the Red Sea city on April 14 that the Arab world must play a “leadership role” in efforts to find a political solution to the crisis in Syria.
The nine-nation talks came after Mekdad had earlier visited Jeddah on an unannounced trip, the first since the outbreak of the war, during which he and his Saudi counterpart discussed “the necessary steps” to return Damascus to the Arab League.
Syria’s membership in the Arab League was suspended following the eruption of a foreign-backed militancy in the country in 2011.
In 2015, Syrian activists said that Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, and Turkey supported both al-Nusra Front, which is affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Daesh terrorist group in Syria by giving them money or allowing Wahhabi mosques to collect money for them.
Around the same time, former U.S Senate candidate, Mark Dankof said the United States, the Zionist regime, and Saudi Arabia had been involved in creating the Daesh terrorist group to overthrow the legitimate Syrian government.
Saudi Arabia closed its embassy in Damascus and withdrew all diplomats in March 2012. The two governments agreed last month to resume diplomatic relations and re-open embassies.
The UAE also cut its relations with Syria in 2012, a year after Damascus found itself in the grips of foreign-backed violence, but it reopened its embassy in Damascus in 2018.