Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was given a warm welcome at an Arab summit on Friday, winning a hug from Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince at a meeting of leaders who had shunned him for years, in a policy shift opposed by the US and other Western powers.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman shook hands with a beaming Assad as the summit got underway, drawing a line under Arab enmity towards a leader who turned the tide of Syria's civil war with help from Shi'ite Iran and Russia.
The summit showcased redoubled Saudi Arabia efforts to exercise sway on the global stage, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in attendance and Crown Prince Mohammed restating Riyadh's readiness to mediate in the war with Russia.
Oil powerhouse Saudi Arabia, once heavily influenced by the United States, has taken the diplomatic lead in the Arab world in the past year, re-establishing ties with Iran, welcoming Syria back to the fold, and mediating in the Sudan conflict.
With many Arab states hoping Assad will now take steps to distance Syria from Shi'ite Iran, Assad said the country's "past, present, and future is Arabism", but without mentioning Tehran - for decades a close Syrian ally.
In an apparent swipe at Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, who has backed Syrian rebels and sent Turkish forces into swathes of northern Syria, Assad noted the "danger of expansionist Ottoman thought", describing it as influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood - an Islamist group seen as a foe by Damascus and many other Arab states.
Crown Prince Mohammed said he hoped Syria's "return to the Arab League leads to the end of its crisis," 12 years after Arab states suspended Syria as it descended into a civil war that has killed more than 350,000 people.
Saudi Arabia would "not allow our region to turn into a field of conflicts", he said, saying the page had been turned on "painful years of struggle".
Washington has objected to any steps towards normalization with Assad, saying there must first be progress towards a political solution to the conflict.
"The Americans are dismayed. We (Gulf states) are people living in this region, we're trying to solve our problems as much as we can with the tools available to us in our hands," said a Gulf source close to government circles.
A Gulf analyst told Reuters that Syria risked becoming a subsidiary of Iran, and asked: "Do we want Syria to be less Arab and more Iranian, or … to come back to the Arab fold?"
Having welcomed back Assad, Arab states also want him to curb a flourishing Syrian trade in narcotics, which are being produced in Syria and smuggled across the region.
Addressing the summit, Zelenskiy, who wants to build support for Kyiv's battle against Russian invaders, asked the delegates to support Ukraine's formula for peace and thanked Riyadh for its role in mediating a prisoner release last year.
Gulf states have tried to remain neutral in the Ukraine conflict despite Western pressure on Gulf oil producers to help isolate Russia, a fellow OPEC+ member.
Arab leaders attending included Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, who said in 2018 the region could not tolerate "a war criminal" like Assad. Sheikh Tamim left abruptly before addressing the summit. Qatar reluctantly withdrew its opposition to Riyadh's initiative to readmit Syria earlier this month.
The Syrian state news agency said he shook hands with Assad, though an Arab official said Tamim left before Assad's speech and his visit was "a courtesy" and did not involve bilateral.
The war has shattered Syria's economy, demolishing infrastructure, cities and factories. Assad could benefit from Gulf investment in his battered country, though US sanctions complicate any commercial ties with Damascus.
The Arab rapprochement with Assad gained momentum after China negotiated an agreement in March that saw Riyadh resume diplomatic ties with Iran, which with Russia has helped Assad defeat Sunni rebels and regain control of some major cities.
A large swathe of Syria, however, remains under Turkish-backed rebels and radical Islamist groups as well as a US-backed Kurdish militia.
Finding a political solution to the 12-year-old conflict remains a big dilemma for Arab and Western countries.
According to UNHCR since 2011, more than 14 million Syrians have been forced to flee their homes. About 6.8 million Syrians remain internally displaced in their own country where 90 percent of the population live below the poverty line.
About 5.5 million Syrian refugees live in the five neighboring countries - Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt.
Ahead of the summit, the US State Department reiterated opposition to normalization of relations with Damascus and said sanctions should not be lifted.
But State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel added that "we have a number of shared objectives" such as bringing home Austin Tice, a former US marine and journalist who was kidnapped in Syria in 2012.
Then US President Donald Trump branded an "animal" for using chemical weapons in 2018 - a weapon he consistently denied using. Assad rarely left Syria after the war began, going only to Iran and Russia until 2022, when he visited the United Arab Emirates - his first trip to an Arab country since 2011.
Salem Al-Meslit, a prominent figure in the Syrian political opposition to Assad, wrote on Twitter that his attendance was a "free reward for a war criminal".
Assad's return to the Arab fold is part of a wider trend in the Middle East where adversaries have been taking steps to mend ties strained by years of conflict and rivalry.
Reuters