Morocco, Syria to reopen embassies after Assad's fall
BGHDAD: This handout picture released by the media office of Iraq's prime minister shows Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Al-Shaibani (left) arriving in Baghdad ahead of the 34th Arab League summit .-- AFP
RABAT: Morocco said Saturday it would reopen its embassy in Damascus, signaling renewed support for Syria after the overthrow of longtime ruler Bashar Al-Assad, as Damascus announced a similar move.
The Moroccan decision was announced in a letter from King Mohammed VI to Syria's interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa, read by the Moroccan foreign minister at an Arab League summit in Baghdad. The letter said Morocco backed the Syrian people 'in their quest for freedom, security, and stability'.
A Syrian foreign ministry statement said top diplomat Asaad Al-Shaibani met with Moroccan counterpart Nasser Bourita on the sidelines of the Arab summit and that 'the two sides agreed to establish bilateral diplomatic relations'. Syria will also 'begin procedures to reopen its embassy in Rabat', the statement said. Rabat severed diplomatic ties with Damascus in 2012 amid the Syrian civil war, which began in 2011 after Assad's violent crackdown on anti-government protests.
Assad was toppled in December in a swift offensive by Islamist-led rebels. The 13-year civil war killed more than 500,000 people and displaced millions. Meanwhile, Syria's defense minister has called on small armed groups that have yet to merge with the security apparatus to do so within 10 days or face unspecified measures, in a bid to consolidate state authority six months after Assad was toppled.
A plethora of weapons outside government control has posed a challenge to interim President Al-Sharaa's efforts to establish control, as groups that both back him and oppose him remain armed. Syrian Defense Minister Murhaf Abu Qasra, in a statement late on Saturday, said 'military units' had now been integrated into 'a unified institutional framework', calling this a great achievement.
'We stress the need for the remaining small military groups to join the ministry within a maximum period of 10 days from the date of this announcement, in order to complete the efforts of unification and organization,' he said. He did not say which factions he was talking about. The statement did not seem aimed at the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a large Kurdish-led force in the northeast that signed an agreement with Sharaa earlier this year aimed at integration with state institutions. — Agencies
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