The UAE foreign minister is calling for Syria to return to the Arab League, saying it is in the best interests of Damascus and other Arab countries.
Sweeping U.S. sanctions against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government undermines regional rapprochement efforts that could help resolve Syria’s conflict, the UAE’s foreign minister has said.
At a press conference with his Russian counterpart in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday, Emirati foreign minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan pushed for “cooperation with Syria”, saying that America’s economic pressure is “as it is”. today makes it difficult ”.
Sheikh Abdullah said it was an issue “that should be part of it [the] communication that we deal clearly with our friends in the United States. ”
He pushed further to put the war back in the 22-member Arab League and noted that the government and the private sector could “play a part” in returning Syria “to normal” “after years of devastating war.
Sheikh Abdullah’s comments confirm the movement of regional dynamics as the 10th anniversary of the Syrian civil war next week.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) supported the Syrian invasion during the early years of the war. But as the Syrian army seized most of the territory from the opposition, the UAE and other Arab countries made openings to the al-Assad government.
In 2018, the UAE opened its embassy in Damascus for the first time since an organized Arab diplomatic boycott began in 2011.
‘Accountable for crimes’
Isolation near Syria has increased since the Trump administration in 2019 enacted legislation known as the Syrian Caesar Civil Defense Act.
The sanctions, which U.S. officials said are aimed at “holding the Assad regime accountable for the crimes it has committed against its own people”, are aimed at the Syrian president, the close circle of allies, family, senior security officers and soldiers, as well as the central bank and any institutions believed to have participated in the wartime violence.
While al-Assad may have won the military campaign against his opponents with the help of Russian and Iranian supporters, there is an even greater challenge in governing while more than 80 percent of his people live in poverty.
Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov did not analyze the Syrian conflict at the press conference beyond saying that Russia “supports political settlement” there as well as in Libya and Yemen at war.
In Libya, the UAE and Russia gave military support to the resettled army leader of eastern Khalifa Haftar as his forces fought the government known by the DA for control of the country’s capital. last year.