Top Western, Arab officials gather in Saudi Arabia to discuss Syria
Top West and Middle East diplomats and ministers meet to discuss sanctions relief for Syria after al-Assad?s ouster.
Foreign ministers and top diplomats from Western countries and the Middle East have gathered in the Saudi capital to discuss the future of Syria, the first such regional meeting since President Bashar al-Assad?s ouster last month.
Syria?s new Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al-Shaibani, who has repeatedly called for the removal of decades-old sanctions, arrived in Riyadh on Saturday evening, according to Saudi state news agency SPA.
Foreign ministers from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkiye will be articulating the regional stance at the meeting.
It will also see the participation of United States Under Secretary of State John Bass, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and British Foreign Secretary David Lammy.
The conference comes as Syria?s new administration, led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), has urged the lifting of sanctions by the West to help international funding flow to Damascus.
Analyst Rob Geist Pinfold says the Biden administration and European countries are ?moving in the direction the HTS wants them to go in terms of removing sanctions, or at least freezing sanctions?.
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?The US has said they will freeze sanctions on things like paying public sector workers on providing energy supplies, for example, and that?s critical,? Pinfold, a lecturer at King?s College London, told Al Jazeera.
?Many of those sanctions were secondary sanctions ? meaning that it wasn?t just US citizens or businesses that will be sanctioned for doing business with Syria, but also other countries or third parties as well.?
Sanctions relief
The US on Monday issued a sanctions exemption for transactions with governing institutions in Syria for six months after the end of al-Assad?s rule to try to ease the flow of humanitarian assistance.
Germany, Italy and France have in recent days pushed for European Union sanctions on Syria to be relaxed, but a final decision could only come from the entire bloc.
Possible priorities for relief include ?those sanctions that are hindering the building up of a country, access to banking services and all these things?, the EU?s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, told reporters in Riyadh on Sunday.
Germany?s Baerbock said on Sunday that sanctions against allies of al-Assad, who ?committed serious crimes? during the Syrian civil war, must remain in place.
A lightning rebel offensive overthrew al-Assad on December 8 and the HTS, which led the advance, set up a caretaker government that appointed al-Shaibani as the foreign minister.
The meeting is the first to include Syria?s new rulers and top Western officials and will be led by Saudi Arabia.
It follows a meeting of top diplomats from the US, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and the EU held on Syria in Rome on Thursday and a landmark meeting Jordan hosted in December, where regional players signalled concerns over Syria?s new rulers and what they need to do to get international recognition.
