Hosting numerous governmental officials in the country, as well as the mother of Al-Assad, Anisa Makhlouf, the UAE has also been at the center of helping Saudi Arabia re-establish ties with Syria.Â
Hosting numerous governmental officials in the country, as well as the mother of Al-Assad, Anisa Makhlouf, the UAE has also been at the center of helping Saudi Arabia re-establish ties with Syria.Â
The UAE representative in Damascus, Abdul-Hakim Al-Naimi, has encouraged the “wise leadership” of Syria’s regime leader Bashar Al-Assad, in the growing attempt from the UAE’s side of re-establishing ties with Syria.
Stressing that the UAE remains steadfast in its commitment towards maintaining “strong relations” with Syria, Al-Naimi stated that the leadership of Al-Assad, who has been accused of war crimes by human rights groups, is what remains as one of Syria’s most remarkable traits. He also stated that he hoped under Al-Assad’s rule, “safety and security prevails across Syria”.
The UAE’s ties to the heavily criticized regime of Bashar Al-Assad has been rife with controversy. According to numerous sources, including Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, the UAE has funded mercenaries from places like the Caucasus to fight against demonstrators and with the Syria regime under Al-Assad’s rule.
The Syrian civil war has continued for 8 years now, with 5.6 million Syrians made refugees because of the prolonged fighting and war. Almost 7 million have been internally displaced, according to Human Rights Watch and The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR). Since the war began, more than 510,000 people have been killed. Indiscriminate detentions and killings, the murder of civilians, the use of chemical weapons, and the bombing of schools and hospitals all constitute towards the Syrian regime (and its partners) guilty of severe human rights abuses and war crimes.
Despite this, the UAE continues to support a close relationship with the Syrian regime. Hosting numerous governmental officials in the country, as well as the mother of Al-Assad, Anisa Makhlouf, the UAE has also been at the center of helping Saudi Arabia re-establish ties with Syria.
In December of just last year, the UAE announced that it would be re-opening its embassy in Damascus, in what they claimed to be a move towards normalizing ties with the Syrian regime. By stating that this was also an attempt at helping keep the country safe from interference in “Arab and Syrian affairs”, this was a direct reference to possible Iranian influence, who remains the only non-Arab nation in the region that the UAE has set to mark as the enemy.
With the UAE’s normalization of Syria’s regime, those suffering the most, the civilians of the country under a more than 8 year war, will continue to be disregarded and ignored for political gain.
