DAMASCUS (Press TV) – With Syrian President Bashar al-Assad winning a fourth term in office and earning a massive mandate from Syrians, calls are growing louder in Europe for reviving diplomatic ties with the Arab country.
European governments, who left no stone unturned in plotting the downfall of the democratically-elected government in Damascus for more than a decade, have finally begun to wake up to the reality: the Syrian government is here to stay for the foreseeable future.
An article in the U.S.-based magazine National Interest says time has come for chancelleries north of the Mediterranean to change their course and send their diplomats back to Syria.
It notes that while some countries like Russia, China, and India never broke off their ties with Damascus, others have begun to mend their broken ties with the Assad government.
Syria has been grappling with the foreign-backed militancy since March 2011. Damascus accuses the Zionist regime and its Western and regional allies of aiding and abetting the Takfiri terrorist groups that have wreaked havoc in the Arab country for over a decade.
A recent report by a U.S.-based humanitarian aid group revealed that the economic cost of the foreign-sponsored conflict in Syria is estimated to be at over $1.2 trillion, beside the loss of thousands of civilian lives and large-scale displacement of people.
The article in National Interest says the Arab world is “quickly changing its tune,” a decade after it voted to suspend Syria when foreign-backed fighting first broke out in the country.
“Not only have Egypt and Algeria both supported the Syrian state explicitly, but Persian Gulf monarchies such as the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Bahrain have also reversed themselves and reopened their embassies with direct flights between Damascus and Dubai having already commenced,” it reads.
“If some former backers of the Syrian opposition can abandon a failed policy, why not Western ones as well,” the article said, calling for restoration of ties between the European countries and Syria.