Bahrain today joins Arab talks on Syria

TDT | Manama                                                

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com    

Bahrain will join its Gulf Cooperation Council neighbours — along with Egypt, Iraq and Jordan— in Jeddah for an Arab regional meeting on ending Syria’s isolation 12 years after Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was shunned.

The nine-nation talks in Jeddah, the Red Sea gateway to Mecca also comes after the landmark March 10 announcement of Saudi and Iran that they would resume ties, seven years after an acrimonious split.

According to a Saudi statement on Wednesday, Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad and his Saudi counterpart had discussed “the necessary steps” to end Damascus’s isolation. Ahead of the talks, United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan flew to Cairo for talks with Egyptian leader Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

Unlike some other governments, Cairo never fully severed ties with Damascus after the war, but relations were downgraded. The UAE has led the charge to bring Syria back into the Arab fold, with Sheikh Mohamed saying last month that “the time has come” for Damascus to be reintegrated into the wider region.

However, a Riyadh-based diplomat told AFP that a unanimous agreement is unlikely on the topic when the 22-nation Arab League meets next month in Saudi Arabia. “The meeting aims to overcome the differences over Syria as much as possible,” the diplomat said. It was possible that Foreign Minister Mekdad would attend the meeting “to present the Syrian point of view”, another diplomat said.