Middle East FMs to discuss Syria's return to Arab League

Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Syria foreign ministers will gather on May 1 to discuss the process of returning the Syrian Arab Republic to the Arab League (LAS).

“On Monday [May 1], the foreign ministers of Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Egypt will meet with the Syrian foreign minister in Jordan. This meeting is held in continuation of the consultations of the countries - members of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt, which was organised by Saudi Arabia in Jeddah on April 14, 2013,” the Petra news agency quotes a statement from the Jordanian Foreign Ministry as saying, TASS reports.

According to the Foreign Ministry, the ministers will also discuss the "Jordanian initiative to achieve a political solution to the Syrian crisis".

The meeting on the return of Syria to the Arab League was held in the Saudi city of Jeddah on April 14 under the auspices of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which includes Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Oman and Saudi Arabia.

As a result, the foreign ministers did not make a final decision on the resumption of Syria's full membership in the regional organization. The meeting’s participants emphasized that "a political solution is the only way to resolve the Syrian crisis", and also agreed on the need to intensify consultations between the countries of the Arab world to create mechanisms that would contribute to the normalization of the situation in the country. A few days after the meeting, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud paid an official visit to Damascus, the first since 2011.

Damascus' membership in the Arab League was suspended in November 2011 at the height of the civil war that began in Syria.