RIYADH (Arab News/AP) –
Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad will attend the upcoming Arab League summit which will be held on Friday, the country’s foreign minister Faisal Mekdad has confirmed.
King Salman invited al-Assad to attend the meeting after the Arab League recently decided to re-admit Syria to the organization after it was suspended in 2011.
At a preparatory foreign ministers meeting ahead of the summit on Wednesday, the league’s Secretary General Ahmed Aboul Gheit and the kingdom’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan welcomed Syria’s participation.
Mekdad later said that Syria “cannot be absent from any Arab summit.”
Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said on Wednesday that the region is at a crossroads, facing a host of challenges. He called for cooperation between Arab countries to achieve security, stability, and economic prosperity.
Mekdad held bilateral meetings this week in the kingdom with several of his counterparts as Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, and Iraq have moved to restore ties with Damascus.
Syria’s return to the Arab fold comes as Turkey is also trying to amend ties with Damascus.
But a few Arab countries remain skeptical of Syria’s return to the league, primarily Qatar.
Qatar’s top diplomat, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, said Wednesday that his country opposes Syria’s return but that it doesn’t want to stand “against the Arab consensus.” Each Arab country, however, can unilaterally normalize relations with Syria, he said.
Earlier, President Bashar Assad received an invitation to attend the upcoming COP28 climate talks in Dubai later this year.
Assad’s invite, late Monday, to the climate talks comes as the Syrian president already is scheduled to attend the Arab League.
Assad’s invitation came in a letter from Emirati leader Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Syria’s state-run SANA news agency reported. The agency published images of Assad reading the letter alongside an Emirati diplomat in Damascus. The UAE similarly had cut ties with Assad, only to slowly restore them in recent years.