BAGHDAD (Dispatches) – Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi has reiterated his support for Syria to be readmitted into the Arab League, a decade after President Bashar Al-Assad’s government quit the organization.
In a meeting between Al-Kadhimi and the Arab League’s Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit in Baghdad over the weekend, the two discussed a number of issues relating to the Arab states and the international community. The Iraqi prime minister assured his support for ending the ongoing conflict in Yemen, helping Lebanon in its political and economic situation, and paving the way for Syria to return to the Arab League.
The Arab League suspended Syria’s membership in November 2011, citing alleged crackdown by Damascus on opposition protests. Syria has denounced the move as "illegal and a violation of the organization’s charter.”
Al-Kadhimi’s comments a day after Iraq’s Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein called in a meeting with the Arab League Secretary-General for Syria’s membership to be reinstated after it left the organization in 2011.
During Aboul Gheit’s visit, Hussein also urged Baghdad and the League "to work together to find a mechanism for dialogue with different countries that have influence in Syria” in an effort to resolve the ongoing decade-long conflict.
The Iraqi minister said that the situation in Syria has an impact on the situation in Iraq. Syria has been embroiled in a vicious foreign-backed war since early 2011.
Syria was one of the six founding members of the Arab League in 1945.