Foreign ministers from nine Arab nations have begun arriving in Jeddah for a meeting of nine Arab countries on Friday focused on ending Syria’s isolation at a time of fast-paced diplomatic shifts across the region. The Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs tweeted a picture of the kingdom’s Deputy Foreign Minister Walid Al Khuraiji welcoming Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry at the coastal city’s Royal Hall on Friday afternoon.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Qatar, and the Foreign Ministers of Kuwait, Sheikh Salem Abdullah Al Jaber Al Sabah, and Oman, Sayyid Badr bin Hamad bin Hamoud Al Busaidi, arrived soon after Mr Shoukry, the Saudi ministry said on Twitter.
Dr Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to the UAE President, Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein and Ayman Al Safadi, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Jordan, also arrived in Jeddah. Friday’s talks in the Red Sea city of Jeddah come two days after Syria’s Foreign Minister arrived on an unannounced visit to the kingdom — the first since the outbreak of the country’s civil war in 2011.
Qatar’s Foreign Ministry confirmed during a press briefing that the top officials of the six GCC countries — Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE — as well as Egypt, Iraq and Jordan had been invited to Jeddah to discuss Syria. “There are many developments regarding the situation in Syria and points of view of Arab states about the return of Syria to the Arab League,” Qatar’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed Al Ansari said during the press briefing. Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman, who is expected to attend the talks in Jeddah, said nothing concrete had yet been proposed.