By MOHAMED WAGDY and KAREEM CHEHAYEB (Associated Press)
CAIRO (AP) — The Arab League agreed Sunday to reinstate Syria, ending a 12-year suspension and taking one other step towards bringing Syrian President Bashar Assad, a long-time regional pariah, again into the fold.
Some influential league members stay against reinstating Syria, chief amongst them Qatar, which didn’t ship its overseas minister to Sunday’s gathering. Thirteen out of the league’s 22 member states despatched their overseas ministers to the assembly in Cairo.
The resolution represented a victory for Damascus, albeit a largely symbolic one. Given that Western sanctions in opposition to Assad’s authorities stay in place, the return to the Arab League just isn’t anticipated to result in a fast launch of reconstruction funds within the war-battered nation.
Syria’s membership within the Arab League was suspended early on through the nation’s 2011 rebellion in opposition to Assad’s rule that was met by a violent crackdown and shortly become a civil warfare. The battle has killed practically a half million folks since March 2011 and displaced half of the nation’s pre-war inhabitants of 23 million.
Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit mentioned in a televised assertion that the choice to return Syria to the group, which is able to enable Assad to participate within the group’s upcoming May 19 summit, is a part of a gradual means of resolving the battle.
“This doesn’t mean that the Syria crisis has been resolved, on the contrary,” he mentioned. “But it allows the Arab (states) for the first time in years to communicate with the Syrian government to discuss all the problems.”
Aboul Gheit additionally mentioned restoring Syria’s membership within the group doesn’t imply all Arab international locations have normalized with Damascus.
“These are sovereign decisions for each state individually,” he mentioned.
Syrian Prime Minister Hussein Arnous claimed Sunday that Syria had been the sufferer of “misinformation and distortion campaigns launched by our enemies” for 12 years. He mentioned Sunday’s consultations mirrored the “prestigious position” Syria holds regionally and internationally.
Opponents of Assad noticed the transfer towards normalization as a betrayal.
“Arab states have put their own cynical realpolitik and diplomatic agendas above basic humanity,” mentioned Laila Kiki, govt director of The Syria Campaign, a global advocacy group. The transfer, she mentioned, has “cruelly betrayed tens of thousands of victims of the regime’s war crimes and granted Assad a green light to continue committing horrific crimes with impunity.”
Sunday’s resolution got here days after regional high diplomats met in Jordan to debate a street map to return Syria to the Arab fold because the battle continues to de-escalate. The subsequent Arab League summit is to happen May 19 in Saudi Arabia.
The Arab League typically tries to succeed in agreements by consensus however generally opts for easy majorities. Sunday’s session was held behind closed doorways, and it was not instantly clear which international locations had registered objections.
Sunday’s resolution additionally features a dedication by Arab governments to attempt to attain a political answer to the battle, according to U.N. Security Council Resolution 2254. Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq have been requested by the league to observe up on developments.
The league welcomed what it mentioned was the Syrian authorities’s willingness to cooperate with Arab international locations to resolve “humanitarian, security, and political” crises that affected Syria and the area as a result of battle, together with refugees, “the threat of terrorism and drug smuggling.”
Many observers had anticipated Syria’s imminent return to the group.
Arab rapprochement with Damascus accelerated after a lethal Feb. 6 earthquake that shattered components of the war-torn nation. One of the international locations pushing normalization is Saudi Arabia, which as soon as backed opposition teams attempting to overthrow Assad.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Samer Shoukry mentioned earlier than Sunday’s assembly that solely an Arab-led “political solution without foreign dictates” can finish the continuing battle. “The different stages of the Syrian crisis proved that it has no military solution, and that there is no victor nor defeated in this conflict,” he mentioned.
In current years, as Assad regained management of a lot of the nation with the assistance of key allies Russia and Iran, neighbors of Syria that hosted massive refugee populations took steps in direction of reopening diplomatic hyperlinks with Damascus. Meanwhile, two Gulf monarchies, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, reestablished ties.
The Feb. 6 earthquake that rocked Turkey and Syria was a catalyst for additional normalization throughout the Arab world. China helped to dealer a current rapprochement between arch-rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran, which had backed opposing sides within the Syrian battle.
Jordan final week hosted regional talks that included envoys from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Egypt, and Syria. They agreed on a framework, dubbed the “Jordanian initiative,” that might slowly convey Damascus again into the Arab fold. Amman’s high diplomat mentioned the assembly was the “beginning of an Arab-led political path” for an answer to the disaster.
The battle in Sudan can also be on the agenda, as Arab states attempt to stabilize a shaky cease-fire within the ongoing preventing that has killed a whole bunch of individuals over the previous few weeks.
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Chehayeb reported from Beirut. Associated Press writers Sam Magdy and Noha El Hennawy contributed from Cairo.
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