Damascus was suspended from the Arab League in 2011 in response to its suppression of the popular protests that took to the streets at the time, before they turned into a bloody conflict.
Syria and its ally Iraq intend to work to strengthen their cooperation on the humanitarian level and to combat drug trafficking, as announced by the foreign ministers of the two countries on Sunday from Baghdad, while Damascus is gradually emerging from its diplomatic isolation.
Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal al-Miqdad, who arrived Saturday in Baghdad on an official visit, met his Iraqi counterpart Fouad Hussein. He is also scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Muhammad Shia al-Sudani and President Abdul Latif Rashid, according to Iraqi Foreign Ministry spokesman Ahmed al-Sahaf.
During a joint press conference with his Syrian counterpart, Hussein described relations with Syria as “deep relations,” adding that Iraq was “one of the initiators of the Arab League meetings and asked for Syria’s return to its seat,” which took place on May 7.
The minister talked about working to continue five-way talks in the gathering of foreign ministers of Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon, to complement the meetings launched in Amman in early May “on how to deal with the humanitarian situation in Syria.”
And he considered that “the issue of Syrian refugees is also an important part of this problem,” especially “how to deal with Syrian refugees, especially those in the surrounding countries in Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq,” as Iraq received about 250,000 refugees, most of them in the camps of Iraqi Kurdistan, according to the minister.
And he stressed that “movement in the next stage will be about the humanitarian issue, humanitarian aid, and how to deliver humanitarian aid into Syria.”
He added that they also discussed “how to work jointly between Iraq and Syria to combat the drug trade and movement.”
For his part, Al-Miqdad thanked Iraq for its “solidarity” with Syria after the devastating earthquake in February, adding that Damascus was looking forward to “the best relations” with Baghdad.
Al-Miqdad said that he discussed with his Iraqi counterpart “the bilateral relations, and we found that they are progressing in various fields, and that the pursuit must continue to achieve more” on the “cultural, political and economic levels.”
Al-Miqdad added, “It remains for us to work together, as we are working now, to combat terrorism, eliminate terrorism, and eliminate the danger of drugs in cooperation between us and others” and “ending the economic sanctions to which the Syrian people are subjected.”
Damascus was suspended from the Arab League in 2011 in response to its suppression of the popular protests that took to the streets at the time, before they turned into a bloody conflict.
At the time, the Iraqi government, which has been close to Tehran and Damascus since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003, announced its opposition to suspending its ally Syria’s membership in the Arab League.
The two countries share a border of 600 km in mostly desert areas, the security file of which is a major issue between them, especially with regard to the activity of the Islamic State and drug smuggling.
In 2014, the Islamic State group seized territory in both countries, before its defeat in Iraq in 2017 and Syria in 2019.
Nevertheless, the organization is still active, albeit to a lesser extent, in both countries. According to estimates published in a report to the UN Security Council in February, the organization has “between 5,000 and 7,000 members and supporters spread between Iraq” and Syria, “about half of them are fighters.”
The report added that the organization is active in Iraq in “rural mountainous areas,” taking advantage of “the porous Iraqi-Syrian border.”
Likewise, the Iraqi authorities frequently announce the confiscation of quantities of the drug Captagon on the border with Syria, after its trade has spread greatly in recent years in the Middle East.
Last March, for example, more than three million tablets of Captagon were seized on the border with Syria.
In addition to the file of border security, the two countries bring together other files such as water, as they share the course of the Euphrates River, which originates from Turkey. The Iraqi authorities complain that Türkiye is building dams that lead to lower water levels for its neighbors.
