The domino effect induced by the diplomatic thaw between Iran and Saudi Arabia threatens to bring down a new player: Syria. Bashar al-Assad’s government, under the influence of Tehran, is on the verge of restoring bilateral relations with Riyadh. “As part of the Kingdom’s desire to facilitate the provision of necessary consular services between the two nations, discussions are underway with Syrian officials to resume consular services,” confirmed the presenter of Al-Ekhbariya TV channel. , Al Jazeera’s Saudi competitor, on Thursday morning’s newscast. The parties assume a historic agreement that would close the chapter of alliances drawn by the Arab Spring.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the mediation of Russia was decisive in unblocking the negotiations. Russian President Vladimir Putin took advantage of the recent visit of his Syrian counterpart to the Kremlin to discuss the terms of the agreement with Saudi Arabia. Iran did the rest. Ebrahim Raisi’s government has convinced Damascus of the importance of reopening diplomatic channels with Riyadh after signing his own truce with the Desert Kingdom in Beijing. They were not the only ones to exert pressure on Al-Assad. Oman and Jordan, Arab countries with a long tradition of conflict mediation, have also encouraged rapprochement.
The names of Maher al-Assad and Hussam Louqa would be at the origin of the negotiations. The president’s younger brother, a senior army commander linked to Iranian interests, and the head of the Mukhabarat, the regime’s intelligence services, reportedly led the Syrian delegation in successive rounds of talks with the Saudis, which took place in Riyadh and Moscow. According to sources consulted by the Wall Street Journal, the intention was to present the agreement ahead of a possible visit to Damascus by Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan, scheduled for the end of April. We will have to wait, but the head of diplomacy of the kingdom had already given up on the current status quo with Syria in his speech at the Munich security conference.
Damascus wants Riyadh to stop funding rebel militias still operating in Syria. For its part, Riyadh wants to close the file of Saudi detainees who were captured for having served in the ranks of Islamic fundamentalist groups involved in the civil war, according to Archyde.com. Negotiations also cover the security architecture on Syria’s border with Jordan and the smuggling of captagon, known as the jihadist drug, from Syria.
“Before the 2011 revolution and overt Iranian interference, Syria was a member of the Arab political order, and was allowed to play a dominant role in post-civil war Lebanon, which helped strengthen Hezbollah,” analyst Aron Lund recalls in the pages of Al-Monitor. The Arab Spring changed everything. Riyadh bankrolled Syrian rebels who took up arms against the Assad regime, while Damascus relied on Tehran and Moscow to retain power in a devastating civil war that quickly turned into a proxy war with intersecting interests at the International scale.
“Relations between Saudi Arabia and Syria have always been difficult, alternating for decades between periods of relative harmony – during which Riyadh often gave small gifts to the cash-strapped Assad regime – and fierce competition. Although neither regime was much fond of the other, the ties did not completely break until 2011, when Riyadh backed calls for Assad’s ouster and in the years that followed, Saudi money was used to fund the rebels trying to overthrow it”adds Lund.
Saudi Arabia encouraged Syria’s expulsion from the Arab League, ultimately prompted by the Assad regime’s brutal crackdown on protesters demanding his resignation. Most of the organization’s members joined the Syrian rebels, which led to the final exit from Damascus in 2011. But in this new scenario, Syria could regain its place despite the mistrust that Assad arouses in certain regional circles. Others, on the other hand, are betting on his return after a decade of chaos. The Syrian president’s participation in the next summit, to be held in Saudi Arabia in May, would restore him as a valid interlocutor.
“The agreement negotiated in Beijing [qui a certifié le rétablissement des relations diplomatiques entre l’Iran et l’Arabie saoudite] will help the Syrian regime to rehabilitate itself in the Arab political order, although this process began before the parties met in the Chinese capital (…) The original, if not main, impetus for this return was a radical change among the Arab States regarding relations with Syria”, writes analyst Imad Harb at the Arab Center in Washington. In reality, the campaign to redeem Assad is the work of the United Arab Emirates. A few years ago, Emirati diplomacy embarked on a policy of appeasement with its neighbours. Restoring relations with Syria “is part of the plan”, says Crisis Group researcher Dina Esfandiary.
The devastating earthquakes in Turkey and Syria accelerated this dynamic. The battered north of Syria received humanitarian aid from Saudi Arabia. The Desert Kingdom sent a plane loaded with food and medical supplies to Aleppo airport. Assad harnessed the wave of international solidarity to advance his own agenda and reconnect with a neighborhood that had hitherto been openly hostile to him. He received the Foreign Ministers of Jordan and the United Arab Emirates in Damascus and spoke by telephone for the first time with the King of Bahrain, Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, and the Egyptian President, Abdel Fattah El Sisi . He then traveled to Oman and the United Arab Emirates. In the latter, he was accompanied by his wife.
“What seems certain is that the Syrian regime succeeded not only in overcoming Arab objections to its rehabilitation, but also in preserving its close relations with Iran while securing the support of Russia to counterbalance it. to the influence of the Islamic Republic in the country,” Harb said. “Asad is not obliged to reduce his relations with Iran. Iran’s role and influence in Syria continues apace and, weakened by twelve years of civil war and economic and physical destruction, the Syrian President is unable to distance himself from Tehran, as some Arab regimes would like him to do”.
Assad comes out stronger, but Mohammed bin Salman is not far behind. The crown prince, a true strongman of the country, takes advantage of the context to bury the hatchet, defuse regional tensions and develop his ambitious economic plans for the kingdom. It is one more step in a strategy that includes a series of previous movements, such as detente with Qatar and Turkey, the truce concluded in Yemen with the Houthi rebels and, as a high point, the rapprochement with the Iran. A period to leave its mark on foreign policy and define its own profile vis-à-vis the United States, which is once again excluded from the equation.