Will Syria’s return to the Arab fold strengthen Arab unity?

I was the UN's deputy special envoy to Syria from 2014 to 2019, and this is my analysis of the current state of affairs, how we got here and what the opportunity now in front of the Arab world looks like. 

Three phases of change

The wider Arab position on the Syrian crisis changed in three phases.

In the first phase – March 2011 to February 2012 – Arab countries led efforts to end the fighting and bring about a political settlement.

The second phase – March 2012 to 2018 – started with the appointment of former Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, as the joint envoy to the country.

Syria's President Bashar al-Assad meets U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan in Damascus March 10, 2012.

This was when the Arab world let the initiative move to the UN, the Friends of Syria Group, the International Syria Support Group and the Astana Platform.

The third phase got underway in 2018, when Syria's foreign minister, Waleed Mouallem, visited Oman. A re-evaluation of relations was probably already underway, sometime after King Salman's accession to the Saudi throne in 2015.

Phase one: The Arab Spring

Moves for a Syrian ceasefire and political settlement were led by the Arab League and coincided with the heyday of the Arab Spring.

The first intervention from the Arab League came in August 2011, six months after the crisis erupted. The Arab League's secretary general went to Damascus with planned proposals for a ceasefire and political mediation between the government and the opposition.

There were suggestions for the Ba'ath party to relinquish power in favour of a transitional national government to prepare for elections.

In October a ministerial delegation visited Damascus to discuss the potential implementation of a Work Plan covering the proposals. But Syria's government did not engage with the Arab League, and the organisation decided to suspend Damascus on 12 November.

Even so, contact remained between Damascus and other Arab capitals. That left the way open for Arab observers to monitor the implementation of the Work Plan, who arrived at the end of the month.

Sanctions

But on 27 November, international sanctions were imposed on Syria. And so just 10 weeks after the observers started their mission, they were withdrawn, in February 2012. That meant management of the crisis moved to the UN.

The exact sequence of these developments and their speed remains open to question and attitudes toward Syria varied at the time.

There were those who desired to ride the tide of the Arab Spring for political change. Some saw Syria as the primary battleground to confront Iranian ambitions for wider domination of the Arab world.

Others thought that prolonged conflict would produce the opposite result — the further entrenchment of Iran in Syria. That position was unpopular until 2018, when it emerged as widely held in the Arab world.

There was no commonly held Arab position on Syria, despite the veneer of unity among the Arab League. There were different levels of Arab diplomatic representation in Damascus throughout.

Some countries never closed their embassies and maintained a mixed level of representation. Algeria, Iraq and Sudan left ambassadors in Damascus. Others, including Egypt, kept representation at the lower level of Charge d' affairs. Only the Gulf Cooperation countries alongside Morocco and Tunisia shut their embassies entirely. 

The lack of a coherent position ended in the paralysis of Arab efforts in the Syrian political process.

Phase Two: Arrival of international organisations

The second phase began when the UN General Assembly set up a joint envoy for Syria with the Arab League, ending independent Arab leadership over diplomacy.

With Arab countries content to subsume their role in that of the UN and other international groups, they did not come up with political settlement proposals, either collectively or individually.

Instead, Syria's neighbours focused on providing humanitarian assistance and supporting the various incarnations of the political opposition, including armed groups.

The Arab world also backed calls for a political transition, as outlined in the Geneva Communique of 2012 and the UN Security Council's Resolution 2254 in 2015.

Then came the appointment of Kofi Annan, the former UN secretary-general, as joint envoy to Syria, along with Nasser Al Kidwa as his deputy, the former foreign minister of Palestine, nominated by the Arab League. 

But Syria's suspension from the League meant Damascus would not work with Kidwa. He also had close links with Syria's enemies, as a member of Fatah and a nephew of Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian president.

Kidwa was never received in Damascus during his entire tenure – which ended with his resignation in February 2014 – diminishing the role of the Arab League.

Creation of special UN envoy role

Annan had already gone by then, and his successor, Lakhdar Brahimi, went a few months later. Damascus insisted it would no longer accept a joint envoy from the UN and the Arab League, insisting on one just from the UN. 

And so, the position was called the UN Special Envoy for Syria, on the understanding that the deputy would be nominated by the Arab League, with the backing of Damascus.

Based on this arrangement, I was appointed as deputy special envoy in September 2014. The relationship between Damascus and the Arab League improved with my appointment.

My tenure lasted until March 2019. Throughout, I had reasonable access in Damascus, including to Waleed Mouallem, the foreign minister, with whom I had bilateral meetings on numerous occasions.

My main interlocutor was Faisal Mekdad, who was then deputy foreign minister and is now foreign minister. It was a chance for Arab countries to re-engage with Damascus. But regrettably, they passed on the opportunity.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry (R) meets with his Syrian counterpart Faisal Mekdad in Cairo.

Likewise, Damascus did not appear interested in helping the UN mediation process, convinced that its purpose was regime change. 

Had the Arab countries made use of the fact that I was well thought of and well connected in Damascus, they could have confirmed the true, joint character of the mediation. They could have provided ideas on the political settlement to the office of the envoy.

Again, they opted not to.

After my departure, in March 2019, my successors were no longer nominated by the Arab League, in part due to a lack of interest from its nations. They were instead chosen from Arab nationals serving as members of the UN secretariat, breaking the direct link with the league.

And so, responsibility for liaison with the league depended entirely on the special envoy.

Phase Three: The long return

This was when the stage was set for Syria's return to the Arab League.

It was a gradual process, influenced by many international and regional developments, and to a much lesser extent, the evolving situation on the ground in the country, where Damascus was gradually achieving the upper hand militarily.

There was a wider regional realignment underway. The boycott of Qatar ended. Relations between Iran and Turkey improved, as did those between the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. All of this change was underway against the background of diminishing US interest in the Middle East.

In January 2015, the Saudi position started to change. While confronting Iran remained a principal interest, the issue of the removal of al-Assad started to recede.

It is rumoured that Moscow arranged for the Syrian intelligence chief Aly Mamlouk to visit Saudi Arabia in July 2015. Apparently, such contacts continued and he also visited Egypt on a number of occasions.

Saudi Arabia also started to show increased interest in Syria's political opposition. Until then, the Syrian National Council and the Syrian Opposition Coalition were dominated by Qatar and Turkey.

With preparations underway for the political talks on Syria called for by UN Resolution 2254, Riyadh hosted a conference for the opposition groups.

The conference established the High Negotiation Committee (HNC), based in the Saudi capital, to represent the opposition in Geneva. But over time, as the effectiveness of the opposition declined, Riyadh lost interest in supporting it.

Deeper contacts between Syria and other Arab countries took more time to develop. They started to accelerate only in 2018, when Syria's foreign minister, Waleed Mouallem, returned to the stage with his first visit to Oman in March. It was his first visit to an Arab country since 2011.

It was followed by the arrival of the Emirati foreign minister to Damascus in November 2019.

Meanwhile, Syrian official and non-official delegations participated in Arab meetings in various Arab countries. There was also continued contact between security agencies.

There was an earlier and unsuccessful attempt to bring Syria back into the League, from Algeria, the host of the 2022 summit. Then, President al-Assad visited Abu Dhabi in March 2022, his first trip to an Arab country since 2011. He paid another official visit almost exactly a year later.

Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad meets with Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan in Abu Dhabi, UAE.

Turning point

The turning point in the wider Arab position came after the devastating earthquake that took place in February 2023, after which there were a series of high-level visits to Damascus.

The Emirati foreign minister was the first Arab official to arrive. He was followed by the foreign ministers of Jordan and Egypt. The Syrian foreign minister later visited Cairo, Amman and Jeddah.

From April, three meetings were held in quick succession, two in Jeddah that month and one in May in Amman that brought the Syrian foreign minister together with a number of other Arab foreign ministers. 

There was a joint statement between Syria and Saudi Arabia after their foreign ministers met in Jeddah on 12 April.

Read more: Classified document reveals details of bringing Syria back to Arab League

It listed agreed priorities: the return of refugees and displaced persons, ensuring access for all Syrians to humanitarian aid, ensuring the unity and territorial integrity of the country and combatting terrorism and drug trafficking.

It was also decided to restore consular relations.

Roadmap for return

It was quickly followed by a meeting in Amman on 1 May, which set out a roadmap for the return of Syria to the Arab League. The declaration gave priority to humanitarian matters, especially for refugees and displaced persons.

It also covered border security, combating terrorism and assisting the government in exercising sovereignty over its entire territory. It set out the start of the process of reconstruction and a political process based on proposals from Jordan over a step-by-step approach to the implementation of UN Resolution 2254.

An emergency follow-up ministerial meeting of the Arab League was held in Jeddah on 7 May. It agreed on a resolution confirming the Amman Declaration and reversing Syria's suspension from the Arab League.

In effect, that brought Syria back into the organisation and the Arab fold. A few days later President al-Assad received an invitation to attend the Arab summit in Riyadh on 19 May.

Syria's return gives Arabs the chance to seize the initiative for a settlement to bring the country back into the wider international community. The challenge will be to turn the US and the EU into supporters for the chosen course.

Read more: Can Europeans and Arabs find common ground to foster a meaningful dialogue in Syria?

That process needs to address the underlying causes that brought about the crisis in the first place.

Reconstruction

The main challenge will be how to jump-start the process of reconstruction. It will need to move from stabilisation to early recovery and rehabilitation and on to reconstruction itself, linked all the way with political and economic reform in Syria.

Read more: Syrian reconstruction will only come from Syrian realism

Without reconstruction, there is no chance for stability in Syria and no chance that foreign military intervention will come to an end. Arab countries, particularly in the Gulf, need to manage this situation, given the sanctions imposed by both the US and the EU.

These include the Caesar Act, passed in the US, which imposes primary sanctions against the Syrian government and secondary sanctions against those that deal with Damascus.

Some Arab countries can use their influence in Washington and major European capitals to argue for changes to allow Syria's reconstruction.

There is a wider opportunity from the nature of the Syrian crisis, in which domestic grievances and foreign interventions intersect. An invigorated Arab role in finding a lasting political settlement should be seen as creating a precedent.

It could lead toward greater unity, and a region-wide vision for a comprehensive and inclusive Arab world, capable of identifying and pursuing the common interest over national divisions.

-Ramzy Ezzeldin Ramzy is a former Egyptian ambassador and senior UN official. He also served as a deputy UN envoy to Syria.