DAMASCUS (Dispatches) – Regular flights between the Syrian capital of Damascus and Saudi Arabia resumed Wednesday for the first time in more than a decade as part of a thaw in relations between the countries, Syrian state media reported.
Syria and Saudi Arabia had severed ties in 2012. But most Arab countries have restored diplomatic ties with Damascus, which was readmitted to the 22-member Arab League last year.
Syria’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Ayman Soussan, said the resumption of flights was “an additional step in the process of development in relations between the two brotherly countries,” state news agency SANA reported.
In May, Syrian pilgrims traveled on a direct flight to Saudi Arabia for the annual Islamic Hajj pilgrimage, but Wednesday’s Syrian Airlines flight to Riyadh marked the return of regular commercial flights.
Syria’s 13-year foreign-backed war is now largely frozen, with the central government in Damascus having reasserted control over most of the territory, while much of the northwest is still controlled by a patchwork of U.S.-backed militant groups and the northeast by Kurdish forces.
Saudi Arabia closed its embassy in Damascus and withdrew all diplomats in March 2012.
Back in May 2023, the two countries agreed to resume diplomatic relations and re-open embassies.
In the same month, the Arab League, a 22-member intergovernmental organization of Arab states, agreed to welcome Syria back into the fold with immediate effect after more than a decade.
Syria was one of the six founding members of the Arab League in 1945. The Arab League suspended Syria’s membership in November 2011, citing an alleged crackdown by Damascus on opposition protests.