Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry pledged solidarity with the Syrian individuals as he met with the nation’s chief Bashar Assad in Damascus on Monday.
The go to got here after the lethal Feb. 6 twin earthquakes sparked a uncommon Arab outreach for the war-torn nation.
Shoukry is Egypt’s most senior official to go to Syria since 2011, a day after Cairo’s parliament speaker, Hanafy el-Gebaly, and a delegation of high Arab lawmakers visited Assad in a push to finish Syria’s political isolation.
Syria was suspended from the Arab League in 2011 after Assad’s authorities cracked down brutally on mass protests towards his rule – an rebellion that rapidly descended right into a brutal civil conflict.
The battle has killed over 300,000 individuals and displaced half the nation’s inhabitants of 23 million.
Though a number of Arab international locations started to rekindle ties with Assad lately, the method intensified after this month’s large earthquake that struck Türkiye and Syria.
The quake killed greater than 47,000 individuals, together with over 1,400 individuals in government-controlled areas of Syria and greater than 2,400 within the opposition-head northwest. The quake additional compounded the war-torn nation’s disaster.
Egypt, Jordan Saudi Arabia are among the many U.S. allies within the Middle East which have delivered quake assist to government-held areas in Syria.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) despatched extra aid-loaded planes than every other nation, together with Syria’s key allies Russia and Iran.
Shoukry informed the media after assembly Assad and in addition his Syrian counterpart, Faisal Mekdad, that Egypt has up to now despatched 1,500 tons of humanitarian assist.
“We will continue to provide whatever humanitarian aid we can,” Shoukry stated. When requested about why Cairo has not but normalized ties with Damascus, he responded by saying his go to was “first and foremost humanitarian.”
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi spoke with Assad over the telephone lower than 48 hours after the earthquake hit, the primary time the 2 had spoken in over a decade.
For years, many public figures in Egypt have known as on el-Sissi’s authorities to strengthen relations with Syria. Shoukry has additionally pushed for Damascus’s return to the Cairo-based Arab League.
Source: www.dailysabah.com
