As relations thaw after more than a decade of isolation, Saudi Arabia has suggested that closer cooperation with Syria may open the road for its admission back into the Arab League, albeit it is still too early to debate this option.
On Tuesday, Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud reaffirmed the Arab world’s growing understanding that communication with Damascus was necessary, particularly to solve the humanitarian crisis in Syria, and that excluding Syria did not work.
“An engagement in order to address these concerns is necessary. And that may well lead eventually to Syria returning to the Arab League et cetera, but for now, I think it’s too early to discuss,” he told reporters in London.
Saudi Arabia will host this year’s Arab League summit.
Prince Faisal, however, said that it was too early to talk about inviting Syria to the summit.
“But I can say that … that there is a consensus building in the Arab world, that the status quo is not tenable. And that means we have to find a way to move beyond that status quo.”
Syria was largely cut off from the rest of the Arab world following its leader Bashar al Assad’s brutal suppression of 2011 uprisings against his government.
In 2011, the Arab League expelled Syria, and other Arab nations recalled their ambassadors from Damascus.
But Assad has benefited from an outpouring of support from Arab states following the devastating earthquake on February 6, which killed thousands of Syrians.