The Saudi Arabian Embassy in Syria will start working again after the end of the Muslim fast in the holy month of Ramadan and the holiday of Eid al-Fitr (Eid al-Fitr). This was reported on Tuesday, May 4, by the Arab newspaper Rai Al Youm, published in London.
The celebration of Eid al-Fitr in the kingdom takes place for three days and this year it will end on May 15.
According to the newspaper, the opening ceremony of the building of the Saudi diplomatic mission in Damascus is expected to be attended by the country’s foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud.
The newspaper also claims that it was possible to reach an agreement on the normalization of bilateral relations after an almost 10-year hiatus on May 3 following a meeting between the chief of the Saudi secret service, Khaled al-Khmeidan, with the President of the Arab Republic Bashar al-Assad and the head of the Syrian National Security Bureau, Ali al-Mamluk.
“The Saudi guest conveyed to the Syrian side that Riyadh will welcome the return of Damascus to the ranks of the League of Arab States (LAS) and its participation in the summit of the inter-Arab community in Algeria,” the newspaper said.
Currently, the kingdom’s authorities have completely stopped supporting the Syrian opposition and closed the office of the opposition Syrian Negotiating Committee, which has been in Riyadh since 2017.
On April 11, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in an interview with the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram, said that many Arab countries are aware of the need to restore ties with Damascus. According to the head of Russian diplomacy, the leadership of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates is committed to the early return of Syria to the “Arab family”, of which it was and remains an integral part. The minister expressed confidence that the sooner such a step is taken, the better, and this would contribute to “reaching mutual understanding between the Syrians on a comprehensive settlement of the crisis in Syria, including its political component.”
Earlier, on March 15, the head of the international committee of the Syrian parliament, Butrus al-Marjan, told Izvestia that Damascus expects to restore its membership in the League of Arab States (LAS) by the end of 2021. He noted that the main condition for the return of the SAR to the “Arab family” is the recognition by the Arab League countries of Syrian sovereignty over the entire territory of the country.