The Kingdom of Jordan will host a meeting on Monday with the foreign ministers of Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria and Egypt.
The meeting is part of a follow-up process on the April 14 meeting of Gulf Cooperation Council countries along with Jordan, Iraq and Egypt in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
The goal of the meeting, Jordanian Petra state media said, is to “build on contacts that these countries made with the Syrian government and within the context of its proposals, and the Jordanian initiative to reach a political solution to the Syrian crisis,” Jordanian Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson Sinan Majali said.
A continuous chain of diplomatic events
This is part of a continuous chain of events. Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad was hosted two weeks ago in Saudi Arabia, the first such visit in more than a decade.
In addition, Russia recently held a meeting with Iranian, Syrian and Turkish officials.
Elsewhere, Tunisia sent an envoy to Syria for the first time in 11 years, after Mekdad visited Tunisia in mid-April. And, a month ago, Mekdad visited Cairo to renew ties, a visit that followed one by Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry to Damascus in late February. A month earlier, UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan also visited Damascus.
All this comes as Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi is set to visit Syria next week. The Jordanian meeting will be important to cementing Syria’s possible return to more Arab-oriented meetings and organizations, such as the Arab League.
This also illustrates Jordan’s important role at the center of all of this. Historically, it played a role in some pan-Arab ambitions in the region early last century. As such, Jordan is symbolically important as a productive meeting place because of its historic connections to Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iraq.