Al-Assad in Jeddah: Damascus holds to same principles despite war

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After over 12 years of the war launched on Syria, President Bashar al-Assad landed in Saudi Arabia to take part in the Arab League Summit, remaining true to his policies despite the international campaign targeting Damascus.

Al-Assad arrived in the coastal city of Jeddah on the Red Sea on Thursday evening to attend the annual Arab summit.

The Saudi Foreign Ministry welcomed the Syrian president in a significant post on its Twitter account, saying: "Welcome your Excellency President Bashar Al-Assad, President of the Syrian Arab Republic, to participate in the Jeddah Summit."

#جدة | أهلاً بكم فخامة الرئيس بشار الأسد رئيس الجمهورية العربية السورية للمشاركة في #قمة_جدة pic.twitter.com/L5Eyzue8qQ

— وزارة الخارجية 🇸🇦 (@KSAMOFA) May 18, 2023

Al-Assad received an invitation from Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz to participate in the 32nd session of the Council of the League of Arab States, which announced on May 7 that Syria's membership in the body has been restored.

رئيس الجمهورية العربية السورية يصل جدة للمشاركة في القمة العربية 32.https://t.co/9cMj2w5PHM#واس_عام | #قمة_جدة

— واس العام (@SPAregions) May 18, 2023

Riyadh re-established relations with Syria, and announced earlier this month the resumption of the work of its diplomatic mission in Damascus.

Arab leaders began to arrive in Jeddah on Thursday to participate in the assembly, but the leaders of Morocco, Algeria, Oman, the UAE, Kuwait and Sudan said they will not attend.

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Sudan and Yemen on the agenda

Two urgent crises are expected to be the center focus of the leaders' agenda: the conflict that has been going on for a month now in Sudan, and the ongoing eight-year war in Yemen.

The Palestinian cause, developments in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, the situation in Lebanon, particularly the presidential vacuum, and the situation of the Syrian and Palestinian refugees will be part of the summit's scheduled issues.

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In addition to the major challenges facing the Middle East, international issues will also be addressed, most notably the war in Ukraine, according to Khaled Manzalawi, Assistant Secretary-General for International Political Affairs at the Arab League.

"It must be emphasized that there will be an urgent need for consensus and collective solidarity... This is a very dangerous stage in the history of the world, which is witnessing the remapping of international relations," Manzalawi said.

"The Arab consensus will achieve a unified Arab position that gives weight to the Arab action, and makes the Arab decision heard, not only at the regional level, but will go beyond that to the global scale as well."

Read more: Sudan: A borderless conflict

Qatar loses diplomatic weight with growth of Saudi influence

On the other hand, the Arab League's welcome for the return of the Syrian president highlights the setback suffered by Qatar's efforts to be a significant diplomatic voice in the Middle East, Reuters reported on Friday.

Qatar and the United States had earlier declared their opposition to restoring ties with Damascus, but Doha indicated that it would not be an "obstacle" to the step taken by the Arab countries.

Analysts see, according to Reuters, that Doha is toning down its position on Syria, which is an indication of a possible retreat from its once ambitious regional foreign policy, in an attempt not to anger its powerful neighbors.

Riyadh used its influence to push the member states of the Arab League to return Syria to the body, according to the head of Gulf State Analytics, Giorgio Cafiero.

"Qatar didn't want to play any obstructive role that would have risked angering the leadership in Riyadh and other Arab capitals," he added.

The Gulf state and the United States collaborated to form the international campaign on Damascus and enforce a change of leadership in Syria, said Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma.

Qatar's Al Jazeera beat "the drums of regime change" by channeling videos of Syrian governmnent forces clashing with protestors, Landis added. Doha "understands full well that they've lost, but it wants to be the last country to normalize with Syria," Landis concluded.

Doha's main focus today is to establish good ties with neighboring countries, especially Saudi Arabia, a diplomat told the news site. "This makes them keen to avoid getting involved in regional confrontations and that is why they are less engaged in Yemen and Sudan than in former times."

Qatar assumed that the war "was going to result in an overthrow" of the Syrian government, Mehran Kamrava, Professor of Government at Georgetown University Qatar, noted, adding that as Damascus emerged victorious from the war, "Saudi Arabia and the UAE shifted their policy most dramatically but Qatar has not."