Eurasia Press & News
Mekdad’s three-day visit to Tunis marks the first by a Syrian official since the North African country cut ties with the Syrian regime in February 2012 over its brutal crackdown against peaceful protests.
Syria’s Foreign Minister Faisal Mikdad headed to Tunisia on Monday for a three-day visit in the latest signal of growing rapprochement between Damascus and other Arab countries after its decade-long isolation.
The visit is the first by a Syrian official since the North African country cut ties with the Syrian regime in February 2012 over its brutal crackdown against peaceful protests.
The Syrian top diplomat met with his Tunisian counterpart Nabil Ammar shortly after arriving in Tunis. No details on the discussions have been revealed yet.
The trip comes after both countries announced earlier this month the reopening of their respective embassies and the exchange of ambassadors.
Mikdad was also in Algeria over the weekend. “Relations between the two brotherly countries exist and will continue to exist … beyond the vicissitudes of the situation,” he said in remarks broadcast by Algerian public television on Saturday.
Algeria was one of the few Arab countries that maintained official ties with Syria at the onset of the war. It was also one of the first to push for Syria’s return to the Arab League. During a visit to Damascus last summer, Algeria’s foreign minister at the time, Ramtane Lamamra, warned that Syria’s absence from the regional bloc was harming coordination between Arab countries.
As Syrian President Bashar al-Assad regained control of much of the Syrian territory in the past years, several countries in the region have rekindled their ties with the regime.
On Tuesday, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan landed in Syria, where he met with Assad. The landmark visit follows Mikdad’s trip to Saudi Arabia last week as the Gulf kingdom opens to the Syrian regime after reaching a deal last month to restore ties with its former regional foe and Assad’s main backer, Iran.
Assad headed to the United Arab Emirates and Oman in March and February, respectively.
But not all Arab countries favor this openness to Assad, particularly Qatar and Morocco. A meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Jeddah last week failed to reach consensus over the restoration of Syria’s membership to the Arab League. Meanwhile, Jordan insists on a plan to end the Syrian war and its devastating consequences on the region before considering Syria’s return to the Arab fold.
The Syrian civil war, which has turned into a proxy war between major international and regional players, has drained and destabilized the entire region. It has also created one of the worst refugee crises in the world, forcing more than half of its population of 22 million to flee either to other Syrian areas or to neighboring countries. More than 306,000 civilians have been killed during the war, according to UN data.
