Foreign ministers and senior diplomats of the West and the Middle East are holding a meeting in Riyadh to discuss the future of Syria – the first regional gathering since President Bashar al-Assad fell last month. Syria’s new Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al-Shaibani, who has pressed several times for the lifting of long-standing sanctions, arrived in the Saudi capital on Saturday evening, state news agency SPA said.
The meeting will be briefed on a common regional outlook by ministers from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkiye. Other notable participants will also include U.S. Under Secretary of State John Bass, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, and British Foreign Secretary David Lammy.
This conference comes at a very critical moment, as the new administration in Syria, under the terrorist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), has called on the West to lift sanctions in order to pave the way for international funding to Damascus. According to analyst Rob Geist Pinfold, both the Biden administration and European nations appear to be aligning with HTS’s requests when it comes to sanctions, suggesting a potential thaw in restrictions.
“The U.S. has indicated it will freeze sanctions related to public sector payments and energy supplies, which is vital,” said Pinfold, a lecturer at King’s College London. He added that many sanctions were secondary, affecting not just U.S. entities but also foreign nations and third-party businesses.
On Monday, the U.S. issued an exemption to its sanctions from transactions with Syrian governing institutions for six months after the end of al-Assad’s rule in a bid to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian assistance. More recently, Germany, Italy, and France have pushed for an easing of the EU’s sanctions against Syria, although such a move would need to be agreed upon by the entire bloc.
The most possible relief areas are sanctions that block the rebuilding of the country and access to basic banking services, EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas said in a press briefing in Riyadh. German Foreign Minister Baerbock said that sanctions on those who are allies of al-Assad and have been responsible for serious crimes during the Syrian civil war must remain in place.
The meeting comes after a lightning-fast rebel advance that saw al-Assad fall on December 8, and an HTS-backed caretaker government name al-Shaibani as foreign minister. The gathering marks the first contact between Syria’s new rulers and senior Western officials, led by Saudi Arabia, following diplomatic meetings in Rome and Jordan to air concerns over Syria’s new masters and the way ahead for its international rehabilitation.
