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Syria and Saudi resume relations

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  • Syria and Saudi resume relations

    This has been unthinkable for years.

    New chapter begins as Syria and Saudi resume relations
    10 July [National] Damascus: If America’s decision to send an ambassador to Syria, after years of ice-cold relations between Damascus and Washington, signals a shift in the Middle East’s political atmosphere, this week’s announcement by Saudi Arabia that it will do the same is a clear sign that a new chapter is really beginning.

    Disagreements between Syria and the US, long-running and passionate, have nevertheless largely been a matter of business, as with warring generals stubbornly fighting for victory but who feel no particular hatred for their opponent. It has not felt driven by personal animosity.

    Not so Syria’s fall-out with Saudi Arabia, which became something of a mutual personal vendetta. The immediate quarrel broke out in 2005 with the assassination of Rafik al Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister and business tycoon who held joint Saudi-Lebanese citizenship and who was a close friend of Riyadh’s ruling Al Sauds. Syria was widely blamed for the murder – a charge it has always denied – and it was seen by the Saudis as reneging on an informal understanding al Hariri was under Syrian protection.

    The car bombing that killed the former Lebanese leader and 21 other people brought about a major reshaping of the Middle East’s political landscape, at a time of wider regional upheaval. ...

    Saudi-Syrian relations, already severely damaged, further soured in 2006 with the Israel-Lebanon war, triggered when Hizbollah, the Lebanese resistance movement, captured two Israeli soldiers.

    Syria, long supportive of Hizbollah, kept up its backing throughout the conflict, to the chagrin of America’s regional allies, including Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, whose regimes all initially blamed Hizbollah for starting hostilities. ...

    By March 2008, Syrian-Saudi relations were so bad that Riyadh withdrew its ambassador to Damascus and the Saudi leader boycotted the annual Arab summit, held in the Syrian capital, a personal sleight against Mr Assad. ...
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