DUBAI (BLOOMBERG) – Syrian President Bashar al-Assad visited the United Arab Emirates on Friday (March 18), his first journey to an Arab nation for the reason that begin of the civil conflict in 2011.
Mr Assad met the de facto ruler of the UAE Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed and Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, in an indication that Gulf leaders who initially supported a rise up towards him are able to welcome Damascus again into the Arab fold.
The shock go to comes as Russian President Vladimir Putin, a key ally of Mr Assad, pushes forward with a greater than three-week-old conflict on neighbouring Ukraine. It drew a rebuke from the United States, which has struggled to rally conventional Gulf Arab allies behind its marketing campaign to isolate Mr Putin amid festering strains in a decades-old relationship.
Syria had been a pariah within the Arab world since Mr Assad’s crackdown on an rebellion in 2011 triggered a brutal civil conflict. He clung to energy with the assistance of Iran and Russia, whose intervention was instrumental in turning the tide of the battle, and his international visits over the previous decade had been restricted to these two international locations. Mr Assad has supported the invasion and Mr Putin has threatened to convey fighters from the Middle East into Ukraine.
Gulf Arab governments have more and more concluded, nonetheless, that they might quite convey Syria again into the Arab fold than abandon it to their rival Iran. Gradual efforts to revive relations have picked up tempo because the Biden administration works with world powers to revive the 2015 nuclear cope with the Islamic republic – an settlement Gulf Arab international locations see as a risk to their very own safety.
Mr Assad’s go to comes amid more and more fraught relations with the US. The UAE and Saudi Arabia have lobbied the Biden administration in latest months for safety ensures – together with extra assist with air defences and intelligence sharing – to counter the looming prospect that sanctions on Iran might be lifted.
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