DAMASCUS (AFP) – Syrian President Bashar al-Assad received an invitation to next week’s Arab summit in Saudi Arabia, the presidency said Wednesday, the first such invitation since the foreign-backed war began in the country.
The pan-Arab body had suspended Damascus in November 2011.
On Sunday, the Arab League welcomed back Syria’s government, securing Assad’s return to the Arab fold after years of isolation.
Assad received an invitation from Saudi King Salman “to participate in the thirty-second Arab League summit, which will be held in Jeddah on May 19”, the Syrian presidency said in a statement.
Assad said the summit “will enhance joint Arab action to achieve the aspirations of the Arab peoples,” the statement added.
Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Jordan, Nayef bin Bandar al-Sudairi, delivered the invitation.
The last Arab League summit Assad attended was in 2010 in Libya.
The invitation comes a day after Riyadh and Damascus announced that work would resume at their respective diplomatic missions in Syria and Saudi Arabia, after more than a decade of severed relations.
The kingdom cut ties with Assad’s government in 2012 and Riyadh had long openly championed Assad’s ouster, backing militants in Syria in earlier stages of the war.
But a flurry of diplomatic activity has been underway since a deadly earthquake struck Syria and Turkey on February 6.
A decision in March by former arch-rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran, a close ally of Damascus, to resume ties also shifted the political landscape.
In April, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan met with Assad in Damascus on the first such visit since the war broke out.
Regional capitals have gradually been warming to Assad as he clawed back lost territory with crucial support from Iran and Russia.
In 2018, the United Arab Emirates re-established ties with Syria and has been leading the recent charge to reintegrate Damascus into the Arab fold.
Turkey, which supported early militant efforts to topple Assad and maintains a military presence in Syria’s north, has also shown interest in mending ties with Damascus.
The foreign ministers of Syria and Turkey were meeting Wednesday in Moscow for the first time since the start of the war.
Russia’s top diplomat proposed a roadmap to normalize Syrian-Turkish ties.