00:00 Well, for more on this story, I'm joined by our Chief Foreign Minister, Rob Parsons.
00:03 Hello to you, Rob.
00:04 As we saw in that report, a dramatic shift in relations recently, still an amazing turnaround
00:09 for Assad to be welcomed back.
00:11 Well, it is.
00:13 If you bear in mind where Assad has been over the last decade plus, since the start of the
00:18 civil war in Syria and the international condemnation that has occurred of his policies with close
00:26 on 500,000 people killed, civilians killed in the conflict in Syria, and the torture
00:36 and the abuses and things that have gone on there, the use of chemical weapons against
00:41 his own people.
00:43 He's not apologized for any of those things.
00:46 And yet here he is in Jeddah for the Arab League summit, welcome back into the fold.
00:53 For him, no question at all about this.
00:56 This is a big triumph because he hasn't really had to sacrifice very much to get there.
01:03 What will he be wanting to get out of it?
01:04 Well, no question that he will want finances if he can get it.
01:08 But just being there is in itself a major achievement for him.
01:12 It makes it so much easier for him to start building relationships in the Arab world.
01:18 And already the Saudis have said they're going to open an embassy in Syria.
01:22 The Syrians are going to do the same in Saudi Arabia.
01:25 I'm sure that once that has happened that others will follow suit pretty quickly.
01:30 So he's being welcomed into the fold.
01:34 Will it immediately lead to big financial gains for him?
01:39 Probably not, I should think.
01:41 He will have to do an awful lot, really, to make things happen.
01:44 The United States is already putting a bill through Congress which will make sanctions
01:50 even tougher on Syria.
01:52 They will certainly, I'm sure, in Washington sanction any of the Arab countries that start
01:57 doing business as normal with Syria.
02:00 And from the point of view of the Arab countries, well, why are they doing it?
02:04 I suppose partly because they're tired.
02:09 Assad doesn't seem to be going anywhere.
02:10 He looks like by and large he's won the conflict.
02:14 They want to deal with the refugee problem.
02:17 They want to deal with the problem that this Captagon drug that is being exported, being
02:21 manufactured in Syria and exported through the Arab world, particularly to the Gulf states,
02:27 they just want to get things moving again.
02:29 But it's difficult to see how things are going to change very quickly just by Assad turning
02:36 up at the Arab League.
02:38 But for him, no question about it, diplomatically it's a major triumph.
02:43 Yeah.
02:44 And real quickly, another visit also in the spotlight there, Ukraine's president trying
02:47 to build relations in the Arab world.
02:49 Yeah, I think this is important for Volodymyr Zelensky.
02:53 Ukraine is building up for what he will hope will be a major counteroffensive against the
03:00 Russians, which will recapture much of the land that he hopes that Russia, that Ukraine
03:05 has lost to the Russians since the start of the war in Ukraine, going back to 2014, including
03:11 Crimea there.
03:13 Ukraine has been very successful in getting the Western world and Japan and a few other
03:18 countries on board.
03:19 But what Ukraine has not been so successful about is been getting developing countries
03:24 and others, including in the Middle East, to support Ukraine, particularly at the United
03:29 Nations.
03:31 Many have been neutral but not come on board.
03:33 Interesting too, he's going from Jeddah apparently to Hiroshima for the G7.
03:39 I imagine with some of the same aims in mind, yes, he will want to talk to the leaders of
03:43 the G7 on issues like F-16 fighter jets for Ukraine, but he'll also be wanting to talk
03:48 to the leaders of India, Indonesia and Brazil, who are also there in Hiroshima, to try and
03:54 get them on board as well.
03:56 Up until now, they've been pretty much neutral.
03:58 All right, Rob, thank you very much.
04:00 Rob Parsons, French 24's chief foreign editor.
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