Saudi Arabia to host talks on Syria's transition with West Asia, European leaders

Saudi Arabia is hosting foreign ministers from the Middle East and Europe on Sunday for talks on Syria’s transition after the fall of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad, a Saudi official told AFP.

“Tomorrow there will be two meetings. The first one is amongst the Arab states. The second one will include Arab states and other countries,” including France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Turkey and Spain, the official said on Saturday.

The talks will focus “on Syria in general” including support for the new administration and the possible lifting of sanctions, the official said on condition of anonymity.

Syria has been under deeply isolating sanctions by the U.Ses, the European Union and others for years as a result of Assad’s brutal response to what began as peaceful anti-government protests in 2011 and spiraled into civil war.

US Under Secretary of State John Bass is also set to attend what the State Department described in a statement as “a Saudi-hosted multilateral meeting of senior government officials from the region and global partners to coordinate international support for the Syrian people”.

Bass is coming from Turkey where he held talks on Syria with senior officials, the statement said.

The Turkish and German foreign ministers are among the other officials who had confirmed their attendance as of Saturday evening.

The meeting is a continuation of talks on post-Assad Syria held last month in Jordan, the Saudi official said.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham led a lightning insurgency that ousted Assad on Dec. 8 and ended his family’s decades-long rule. From 2011 until Assad’s downfall, Syria’s uprising and civil war killed an estimated 500,000 people.

The U.S. has gradually lifted some penalties since Assad departed Syria for protection in Russia. The Biden administration in December decided to drop a $10 million bounty it had offered for the capture of a Syrian rebel leader whose forces led the ouster of Assad last month.

Syria’s new leaders also have been urged to respect the rights of minorities and women. Many Syrian Christians, who made up 10% of the population before Syria’s civil war, either fled the country or supported Assad out of fear of Islamist insurgents.

With inputs from agencies