The Arab League welcomed Syria’s government back on Sunday, bringing an end to a more than decade-long suspension and ensuring President Bashar al-Assad’s return to the Arab fold after years of isolation.
The UN suspended Damascus in November 2011 for its crackdown on nonviolent protests that began earlier that year and spiraled into a war that has killed over 500,000 people, displaced millions, and damaged the country’s infrastructure and industries.
While the front lines have mainly calmed down, vast sections of the country’s north remain outside government control, and no political solution to the 12-year-old conflict has been reached.
“Government delegations from the Syrian Arab Republic will resume their participation in Arab League meetings” starting Sunday, said a unanimous decision by the group’s foreign ministers.
In a statement, the ministers emphasized their “desire to play a leading Arab role in efforts to resolve” the Syria issue.
They agreed to establish a ministerial committee to maintain “direct dialogue with the Syrian government in order to reach a comprehensive solution.”
The agreement, according to the head of the 22-member Arab League, “brings the Arab side into communication with the Syrian government for the first time in years.”
Syria’s re-admission to the organization is “the beginning… not the end of the issue,” he continued, emphasizing that individual countries must decide whether to restart relations with Damascus.
