BEIRUT: Hezbollah said Thursday that “it is in Lebanon’s interest” for Syria to be invited to the Arab Economic and Social Development Summit, which will be held in Beirut near the end of this month.
Lebanon, Hezbollah said, is Syria’s “closest and most important neighbor” and should be at the “forefront” of initiators for Syria’s return to the Arab League, from which it has been suspended since 2011.
Damascus’ membership in the league was suspended following the outbreak of the Syrian war. But a source from Lebanon’s presidential palace told The Daily Star recently that Syria could rejoin if foreign ministers from the member states, who are scheduled to meet in Beirut on Jan. 18, the day before the summit is scheduled to begin, choose to reinstate the country.
In that case, the Baabda Palace source said, “we will immediately send an invitation to Damascus.”
Following a meeting of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc Thursday, the party issued a statement noting “a positive Arab” attitude toward Syria as well as Arab states’ recent, “accelerated” return to Damascus.
Last month, notorious Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir made an official visit to Damascus, and a week later Syrian intelligence chief Ali Mamlouk met in Cairo with his Egyptian counterpart. Then this past week, the United Arab Emirates reopened its embassy in Damascus, and a Syrian passenger flight flew to Tunisia for the first time in nearly eight years.