UAE foreign minister visits Damascus, first since 2011

The head of diplomacy of the United Arab Emirates met Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Tuesday, November 9, during the first visit to Damascus by a senior official of this country since the start of the war in 2011, a trip criticized by the United States.

Allied country of the Emirates, the United States expressed its “concern” and deplored any effort to “rehabilitate” Bashar al-Assad, accused of being “a brutal dictator”, “atrocities” and “depriving him of access to humanitarian aid most of the country “.

Sign of a warming of relations between the Syrian power and the Arab States of the Gulf, the visit of the Emirati minister signals the regional efforts to get Syria out of its isolation after 11 years of war which devastated its economy.

The Emirates, like the five other Arab monarchies in the Gulf, severed diplomatic relations with Syria in February 2012 as the bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protests turned into a complex and devastating war.

In Damascus, Bashar al-Assad and the Emirati minister, Abdallah ben Zayed Al-Nahyane, discussed “relations between the two brotherly countries and the means to develop them”, according to the Syrian agency Sana. The Syrian president praised “the objective positions of the Emirates which have always stood by the side of the Syrian people”.

The Emirati minister underlined his country’s readiness to help “strengthen the security, stability and unity of Syria”, according to the official Emirati agency WAM.

Abu Dhabi reopened its embassy in Damascus in December 2018, but relations had remained cold.

Washington “concerned”

The United States expressed, Tuesday, its “concern” vis-a-vis this visit, deploring any effort aimed at “rehabilitating” the Syrian president, considered by Washington like “a brutal dictator”.

“We urge all states in the region to carefully consider the atrocities perpetrated by this regime and by Bashar al-Assad himself against the Syrian people over the past decade, as well as the regime’s persistent efforts to deprive most of the country with access to humanitarian aid and security, “US diplomacy spokesman Ned Price told reporters.

“We are concerned about the information about this meeting and the message it sends,” Ned Price also said. “This is a subject that we often have the opportunity to raise with our close partners in the region, including our Emirati partners, and we have made our position clear,” he added.

Syria had been ostracized from the Arab world after the start of the war and many Arab countries, including Gulf monarchies, had supported the opposition and the Syrian rebels against the master of Damascus.

Helped militarily by Russia, Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah, the forces of Bashar al-Assad, after many setbacks, took back from 2015 a large portion of Syrian territory.

Beyond the diplomatic front, the Syrian power seeks to relaunch economic ties with the Arab states, the country being plunged into a serious economic crisis coupled with Western sanctions. Without forgetting the colossal destruction and the infrastructure of the country in ruins because of the conflict which left around half a million dead and caused the displacement of half of the population.

A report by the NGO World Vision, published earlier this year, puts the economic cost of the conflict at over $ 1,200 billion (just over € 1,000 billion).

The Emirates, a rich oil-producing country, are Syria’s main trading partner and represent 14% of its international trade. The “Emirates are the lifeline of Syria”, the sanctions complicating the reconstruction, estimates the analyst Nicholas Heras. “Damascus needs the Emirates (…) to access crucial funds.”

The Emirates are not the only ones reaching out to Damascus. In September, Jordan’s King Abdullah II spoke by telephone with Bashar al-Assad for the first time since 2011. The two neighboring countries have since reopened a major border crossing.

After Damascus, the Emirati minister must go to Jordan, according to the Syrian newspaper al-Watan.

Iranian influence

Egypt, where the Arab League sits, from which Syria was excluded in 2011, deemed it necessary to restore links with Damascus in the long term. “A day will come when Syria will re-enter the Arab fold. But that will depend on the policies adopted by the Syrian government,” said the head of diplomacy, Sameh Choukri.

This warming of relations is also seen as a way of trying to distance Assad’s power from an exclusive influence of Iran, the latter country having reinforced its military presence in Syria thanks to the war.

While the regime controls most of the country, Syria remains fragmented. The Kurds control the North-East, and other areas of the North are under the control of jihadists and rebels or even Turkish forces and their Syrian auxiliaries.

And the jihadist group Islamic State continues to carry out deadly attacks despite its territorial defeat in 2019.

With AFP