{"id":34110,"date":"2019-03-04T22:23:12","date_gmt":"2019-03-04T22:23:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=34110"},"modified":"2019-03-04T22:23:12","modified_gmt":"2019-03-04T22:23:12","slug":"saudis-jubeir-too-early-to-reopen-syria-embassy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=34110","title":{"rendered":"Saudi’s Jubeir: ‘Too early’ to reopen Syria embassy"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Saudi Arabia<\/a> has ruled out reopening the kingdom’s embassy in Syria<\/a>, saying it is “too early” to restore diplomatic ties with President Bashar al-Assad<\/a>‘s government.<\/p>\n

The comments were made on Monday by\u00a0Minister of State for Foreign Affairs<\/span> Adel al-Jubeir, who also said Saudi authorities would not take part in any reconstruction efforts in Syria without progress on a political process to end the country’s eight-year-old war.<\/p>\n

“The kingdom has always been keen on the integrity of the Syrian territory and the political solution,” al-Jubeir told a joint press conference with\u00a0Russian\u00a0counterpart Sergey Lavrov<\/a>\u00a0in the Saudi capital, Riyadh.<\/p>\n

“[And] the reopening of the embassy is related to the progress of the political process,” he added.<\/p>\n

Riyadh closed its embassy in the Syrian capital, Damascus, and pulled out its diplomats and staff in March 2012.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Minister @AdelAljubeir<\/a>: “We agreed on the importance of reaching a political solution, based on Security Council Resolution 2254, and are very keen on the unity and sovereignty of #Syria<\/a> and the success of the political process.” pic.twitter.com\/vj3uYNRgzN<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Foreign Ministry \ud83c\uddf8\ud83c\udde6 (@KSAmofaEN) March 4, 2019<\/a>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Al-Jubeir also said Riyadh, which backed rebels fighting Assad, was against reinstating Syria to the Arab League<\/a> for now.<\/p>\n

Syria was suspended from the pan-Arab body in 2011 and slapped with sanctions following Assad’s brutal crackdown on anti-government protests<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The unrest escalated into the country’s ongoing civil war, which has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced more than 11 million others, according<\/a>\u00a0to the United Nations.<\/p>\n

Assad has since recovered control of most of Syria with support from Russia, Iran and Tehran-backed groups such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), meanwhile, have backed armed groups opposed to Assad during the war.<\/p>\n

In December last year, Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir\u00a0became<\/a> the first Arab League leader\u00a0to visit Damascus since the war in Syria<\/a> began.<\/p>\n

Shortly afterwards, the UAE, a Saudi ally, reopened<\/a> its embassy in Damascus in December in a bid to re-engage with Assad and rebuild its influence in Syria as a means of heading off regional interference in “Arab affairs”.<\/p>\n

But the United States<\/a> is lobbying other Gulf states to hold off on rehabilitating Syria, the Reuters news agency\u00a0reported\u00a0last month, citing five sources familiar with the process.<\/p>\n

Fresh EU sanctions on Damascus<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The European Union<\/a> also stepped up pressure on Damascus on Monday, adding Syria’s interior minister and six other ministers,\u00a0including<\/a> the portfolio holders for tourism, education and communications and technology, to a sanctions blacklist for their role in Assad’s “violent repression” of civilians.<\/p>\n

The European Council, which includes the heads of state or government of the 28 EU member states, said<\/a>\u00a0in a statement those sanctioned were barred from travelling to Europe and would see their assets frozen.<\/p>\n

Including the seven newly added individuals, there are now 277 people under EU sanctions for their role in the repression of civilians in Syria and their links to Assad.<\/span><\/p>\n

Brussels has also frozen the assets of some 72 entities, while other sanctions include an embargo on Syrian oil and a freeze on the country’s central bank assets within the bloc.<\/p>\n

“The EU will continue to consider further restrictive measures against Syria as long as the repression continues,” the European Council statement said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\n SOURCE:
\n Al Jazeera and news agencies<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saudi Arabia has ruled out reopening the kingdom’s embassy in Syria, saying it is “too early” to restore diplomatic ties with President Bashar al-Assad’s government. The comments were made on Monday by\u00a0Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel al-Jubeir, who also said Saudi authorities would not take part in any reconstruction efforts in Syria without…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":34111,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34110\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/34111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}