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The United Arab Emirates foreign minister met Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus Tuesday in a sign of improving ties between Assad and a US-allied Gulf state, triggering US denunciations of efforts to rehabilitate a “brutal dictator.”
Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan is the most senior Emirati dignitary to visit Syria in the decade since the eruption of a civil war in which several Arab states backed mainly Sunni Muslim insurgents against Assad.
The visit is widely seen as a sign of regional efforts to end Assad’s diplomatic isolation as Syria grapples with a spiralling economic crisis caused by years of conflict and compounded by Western sanctions.
“President Assad received UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan” and an accompanying delegation, Syrian state news agency SANA said.
“They discussed bilateral relations between the two brotherly countries and ways to develop cooperation in different sectors that are of common interest,” it added.
Sheikh Abdullah underlined in his meeting with Assad “UAE’s keenness on the security, stability and unity of Syria,” UAE’s state news agency WAM said.
He also stressed the “UAE’s support for all efforts made to end the Syrian crisis, consolidate stability in the country, and meet the aspirations of the brotherly Syrian people,” WAM reported.
US slams expression of ‘support’
But the UAE’s ally Washington quickly expressed concern over the signal sent by the encounter.
“This administration will not express any support for efforts to normalise or rehabilitate Bashar al-Assad, who is a brutal dictator,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters, not referring to him as president.
The UAE severed relations as Syria’s repression of nationwide protests demanding regime change was escalating into a devastating war that has since left nearly half a…
Source : france24
