US senators condemn Syria’s readmission to Arab League
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – US Senators Jim Risch and Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), both of whom are members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, condemned the Arab League’s decision to re-admit Syria.
“This move is the latest in a troubling trend of US partners in the Middle East and North Africa normalizing relations with the Assad regime. … Improving ties with the regime will send the wrong message to its Iranian and Russian enablers as Putin repeats in Ukraine the atrocities he committed in Syria,” both senators said in a joint statement.
Yesterday, the Arab League voted to re-admit the Syrian government. It had been suspended in 2012 over the violence it unleashed against protestors. Syria is likely to re-take its chair at the Riyadh summit on May 19.
“Arguments that normalization with Assad will somehow eject Iran and Russia from Syria are not compelling,” the statement continues, “as they are the primary guarantors of Assad’s survival. To top it off, recent overtures to Assad by his neighbors have been met with a flood of Syrian Captagon trafficked over their borders.”
Syrian-produced captagon has been flooding the Gulf over the past years, leading to a health crisis. Saudi Arabia and the UAE, as well as Jordan, have spearheaded efforts for rapprochement with al-Assad. However, the Syrian president has not made any official concessions in return for his re-admission.
“These normalization efforts therefore threaten to further freeze conflict and serve as an obstacle to accountability,” the two US politicians write. “We urge the Biden Administration to make clear its opposition to such efforts ahead of the Arab League Summit … and signal its willingness to impose consequences, including enforcement of Caesar sanctions, on those that undermine accountability for the regime’s atrocities by restoring ties with Assad and his regime.”