There is a general sense of disappointment among Arabs regarding Damascus' handling of the recent normalisation efforts to bring it back into the Arab fold after a long hiatus due to its actions during the Syrian civil war.
On its part, Damascus, too, feels it has gotten little out of the process despite making what it considers "big concessions".
Since Damascus rejoined the Arab League last May, some expected it to take specific steps. These included exchanging information, forming security cooperation committees to combat drug trafficking across borders, facilitating refugee returns, convening the Constitutional Committee (CC), and enabling humanitarian aid access.
Progress painstakingly slow
But progress has been painstakingly slow in the past few months.
One minor achievement was the formation of the Syrian-Jordanian Anti-Terrorism Committee. Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad accepted a working paper from his Jordanian counterpart, Ayman Al-Safadi, but stressed it was non-binding. The paper outlined expected steps from Damascus as part of the "step for step" initiative.
Read more: UN Envoy to Syria: Arab normalisation presents unique opportunity that must be seized
However, drug shipments seemed to have only increased since then. Even Arab foreign ministers supportive of rapprochement with Damascus were let down by recent developments.
One person involved stated, "Mekdad is acting as if nothing had happened (over the past decade), as if Syria were in the year 2010 or before."
