Saudi foreign minister meets Assad in Damascus

Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister met president Bashar al-Assad in Damascus as regional countries remained sharply divided over the prospect of readmitting Syria to the Arab League.

Prince Faisal bin Farhan’s trip to Syria on Tuesday is the first by a Saudi foreign minister since 2011, when a crackdown by Mr Assad’s regime on protesters sparked a bloody civil war and resulted in the country’s suspension from the pan-Arab organisation.

The Saudi foreign ministry said in a statement that Prince Faisal and Assad discussed steps for a political resolution in Syria “that would contribute to the return of Syria to its Arab surroundings”, and creating the conditions for the return of millions of Syrians who fled the war.

A Syrian statement said Prince Faisal told Mr Assad that “the coming period requires that the relationship between Syria and its sisterly Arab countries returns to its proper state.”

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The meeting came days after Arab ministers gathered in Saudi Arabia to debate normalisation with Mr Assad, with some countries including Qatar, Jordan and Kuwait pushing back. Saudi Arabia had planned to invite Assad to an Arab League summit next month, but the meeting on Friday left that in doubt.

Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries had supported Assad’s opposition which took over swathes of Syria during the civil war. But he has since regained much of the country with Russian and Iranian military support, and chipped away at his regional ostracism with visits to the United Arab Emirates and Oman in 2022 and 2023.

Officials familiar with the talks said Jordan, Egypt, Kuwait and Qatar had raised objections against Mr Assad in Friday’s meeting, saying he had done little to rehabilitate himself. “They all asked [the Saudis] ‘what are you getting from them?’” one of the officials said.

One sticking point was Captagon, a highly addictive amphetamine whose trade has become an economic lifeline for the Assad regime, and made its way to Saudi Arabia and Jordan. “[Syria] has become a narcostate, the trade is four or five billion [dollars] a year. And we can’t pay [the price for] that,” the official said.

The officials also said the Assad regime had shown no interest in taking on Arab demands such as progress on talks with the opposition. “The Syrians want total surrender. Some are joking that they might even ask for an apology,” the official said.

Another official said readmitting Syria while Iran had troops in the country and exercised influence over Mr Assad would reward Tehran.

A deadly earthquake in Turkey and Syria in February helped accelerate the rapprochement with Mr Assad. It also comes amid a wider detente between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which this year agreed to normalise diplomatic ties.

Faisal Mekdad, Syria’s foreign minister, appeared to acknowledge the opposition to his country’s Arab League re-entry, saying it would be difficult before Damascus repaired bilateral relations with Arab countries, Syrian official media reported on Sunday.

Mr Mekdad has visited Egypt, Algeria, Saudi Arabia and Tunisia this year.

– Additional reporting by Raya Jalabi in Dubai

– Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2023