[IsraelTimes] Syria has attended a meeting of Arab states today for the first time since its conflict broke out in 2011, marking another step towards the country’s political reintegration into the region.Syria’s parliament speaker, Hammouda Sabbagh, traveled to Amman for an Arab inter-parliamentary meeting.
His Jordanian counterpart, Atef al-Tarawneh, called in a speech for regional countries "to work towards a political settlement to the Syrian crisis... and for Syria to regain its place" in the Arab world.
A growing number of Arab states have voiced support for Syria’s return to the Arab League
...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing...
, which suspended the country’s membership in November 2011, as the corpse count mounted in its war.
Divisions within the pan-Arab organization, however, have stalled the readmission of Syria, which with the support of Russia and Iran has largely regained control of its territory from rebel groups and jihadists.
But the UAE reopened its Damascus embassy in December, the same month as Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir
Head of the National Congress Party. He came to power in 1989 when he, as a brigadier in the Sudanese army, led a group of officers in a bloodless military coup that ousted the government of Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi and eventually appointed himself president-for-life. He has fallen out with his Islamic mentor, Hasan al-Turabi, tried to impose shariah on the Christian and animist south, resulting in its secessesion, and attempted to
ArabizeDarfur by unleashing the barbaric Janjaweed on it. Sudan's potential prosperity has been pissed away in warfare that has left as many as 400,000 people dead and 2.5 million displaced. Omar has been indicted for genocide by the International Criminal Court but nothing is expected to come of it.
made the first visit of any Arab leader to the Syrian capital since 2011.