Qatar calls talk of Syria’s return to Arab League ‘speculation’

Talk of Syria returning to the Arab League is speculation as the reasons for its expulsion still exist, Qatar has said.

Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani’s comments on Thursday came ahead of Friday’s meeting of regional foreign ministers that neighbouring Saudi Arabia called to discuss Syria’s return to the Arab League.

Diplomats say that Syria’s return to the Arab League and presence at an expected summit in May will be discussed.

However, Al Thani, who will be at the talks, said nothing has been proposed.

“It is all speculation about Syria [returning] in the Arab League, and the decision is up to the Syrian people,” Al Thani said in a nationally televised interview.

“Qatar’s position is clear that there were reasons to suspend Syria’s membership, and these reasons still exist,” he added.

Syria was suspended from the Arab League in 2011, months after Bashar al Assad ordered a brutal crackdown on a pro-democracy uprising.

Qatar has been a major aid donor to Syrian refugees.

“The war has stopped, but the Syrian people are still displaced,” the prime minister said.

“We do not want to impose solutions on the Syrian people, and there must be a political solution.

“We do not take any step without a political solution, and each country has its own decision and sovereign right.”

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Back from isolation

Several Arab countries, including regional heavyweights Egypt and the UAE, have mended ties with Damascus, in contrast to 2011 when many Western and Arab states boycotted Assad over his brutal crackdown on protests — violence that led to a protracted civil war.

Hundreds of thousands of people have died in that war, which drew in numerous foreign powers and splintered the country.

Ministers and top officials from the six Gulf Cooperation Council countries — Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — plus Egypt, Iraq and Jordan will gather at Saudi Arabia’s request on Friday.

Assad’s attendance at next month’s Arab League meeting, though largely symbolic, would mark the most significant development in his rehabilitation within the Arab world since 2011.

Reports say some countries support Syria’s return, and its Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad arrived in Jeddah on Wednesday, the first such visit since the war began.

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