Syria's return to Arab League is 'speculation', says Qatar PM

Talks of Syria returning to the Arab League are speculations as the reasons for its expulsion still exist, the Qatar prime minister said on Thursday.

Qatar has been an outspoken critic of Bashar Al-Assad’s Syrian government, which will be at the center of talks between nine Arab countries in Saudi Arabia on Friday.

Diplomats say Syria’s return to the Arab League and its potential presence at an expected summit in May will be discussed.

However, Qatar’s PM Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani, who will be at the talks, said nothing has been proposed.

“It is all speculation about Syria [returning] in the Arab League, and the decision is up to the Syrian people,” Al-Thani said in an interview.

Syria’s suspension from Arab League

“Qatar’s position is clear that there were reasons to suspend Syria’s membership, and these reasons still exist,” he added in comments that were welcomed by the Syrian opposition.

Syria was suspended from the Arab League in 2011 after Assad ordered a brutal crackdown on a pro-democracy uprising.

Qatar supported the Syrian opposition groups.

“The war has stopped, but the Syrian people are still displaced,” Al-Thani said. “We do not want to impose solutions on the Syrian people, and there must be a political solution.

“We do not take any step without a political solution, and each country has its own decision and sovereign right.”

Ministers and top officials from the six Gulf Cooperation Council countries — Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — plus Egypt, Iraq and Jordan will gather at Saudi Arabia’s request on Friday.

Syria has been diplomatically isolated since the start of its civil war in which hundreds of thousands of people have been killed.

Reports say some countries support Syria’s return, and its Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad arrived in Jeddah on Wednesday, the first such visit since the war began.

The Syrian National Coalition, an opposition group that occupies the Syrian embassy in Doha, praised the “noble” Qatari stance on Assad and its supply of humanitarian aid.

“We appreciate the firm Qatari position, which rejects normalisation with the Syrian regime,” the coalition said in a statement released by the embassy.

It said the Syrian people were still “suffering from the bitterness of displacement, bombing and detention to this day”.

With inputs from AFP

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