Iran welcomes Syria’s return to Arab League after 12 years

Iran has welcomed Syria’s return to the Arab League more than a decade after its membership was suspended by the 22-member regional organization.

“Settlement of disputes among Muslim countries, as well as convergence and synergy among them, will deliver favorable results for collective stability and peace and will pave the way for reducing foreign profit-seeking interferences in regional affairs,” Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kan’ani said in a statement on Monday morning.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran welcomes such an approach,” he added.

Arab government representatives in Cairo voted on Sunday to return Syria to the Arab League after a 12-year suspension.

All 13 of the 22 member states that attended the session endorsed the decision. However, there is still no Arab consensus on normalization of ties with Damascus.

Several governments did not attend the meeting. Among the most notable absentees was Qatar, which continues to back the so-called moderate militant groups against Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government.

The vote in the Egyptian capital came days after top Arab diplomats met in Jordan to discuss a roadmap to bring Syria back into its fold as the foreign-sponsored conflict is in its last stages.

The decision also includes a commitment to ongoing dialogue with Arab governments to gradually reach a political solution to the conflict, in line with UN Security Council Resolution 2254. 

The Arab League also set up a communications committee consisting of Saudi Arabia and Syria’s neighbors Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq to follow up on the developments.

The Arab League suspended Syria’s membership in November 2011. Syria has denounced the move as “illegal and a violation of the organization’s charter.”

Syria was one of the six founding members of the Arab League in 1945. In recent months, an increasing number of countries and political parties have called for the reversal of its suspension from the Arab League.

ME