Syria's return to Arab League could stop civil war, says UN chief

Damascus engages with Middle Eastern states for first time during 12-year conflict

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres says the region has a crucial role to play in seeking an end to the Syrian conflict. AFP

Syria’s return to the Arab League and its engagement with regional states could help to resolve the country's 12-year civil war, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has said.

The 22-nation bloc voted on Sunday to reinstate Syria after a 12-year suspension.

President Bashar Al Assad is set to join the league’s May 19 summit but western sanctions will continue to block reconstruction funds to the war-battered country.

Mr Guterres said on Monday that he believed the region had “a vital role to play” in the search for an end to the conflict, which began with an uprising against Mr Al Assad’s rule in 2011 that was met with a violent clampdown.

So far, nearly half a million people have been killed, while half of the country’s pre-war population of 23 million has been displaced.

Mr Guterres’s comments challenged regional players to take a leading role in trying to get the Syrian government and opposition to negotiate an end to the war — something that succeeding UN envoys have been unable to do.

The UN's special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, would “continue to work closely with all key actors”, his spokesman said.

The reinstatement into the Arab League means that a committee will be set up to maintain direct communication with the Syrian government to reach a comprehensive solution to the conflict.

The committee will comprise the head of the Arab League and the representatives of Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon.

The other requirements of the league include continued efforts to arrange the delivery of aid in Syria.

The move follows a Jordanian initiative that laid out a plan to end the country's conflict. It focused on the issues of refugees, missing detainees, drug smuggling and Iranian militias operating in Syria.

At the same time, Syria’s chemical weapons programme remains a serious and contentious issue.

Several nations and a global watchdog have accused Damascus of hiding its chemical weapons activities, while its close ally Russia defends Mr Al Assad’s actions.

Syria joined the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in 2013 after being threatened with US air strikes in response to a chemical attack on the outskirts of the country’s capital, Damascus.

In an unprecedented vote in April 2021, members of the organisation voted to suspend Syria’s voting rights as a punishment for the repeated use of toxic gas.

Investigations by the OPCW twice blamed Syrian government forces for chemical attacks and found “reasonable grounds to believe” it was responsible for another attack.

At Monday’s monthly UN Security Council meeting on Syrian chemical weapons, UN disarmament chief Izumi Nakamitsu said Damascus had failed to address “identified gaps, inconsistencies and discrepancies” in its original declaration on its chemical programme.

Russia’s deputy UN ambassador Dmitry Polyansky, whose country is a veto-wielding member of the Security Council, accused the OPCW of being an “instrument” of the West and manipulating its investigations to blame Syria.

US deputy ambassador Robert Wood criticised Syria’s failures to answer the OPCW’s questions and “Russia’s shameless shielding of Syria’s defiant behaviour”, which he said was leaving the Syrian people facing the prospect of further chemical weapons attacks.

He said Russia supported the Security Council resolution adopted in 2013, which strongly condemned any use of chemical weapons in Syria and ordered it not to use, develop, produce, acquire, store or retain chemical weapons.

But now, he said, instead of supporting the resolution, “Russia has chosen to attack the credibility and professionalism of the OPCW — undermining the UN Charter in the process”.