/ world today news/ Just recently, there was an active discussion in the Arab media on the topic “Does Russia have a role in the Arab world?” This was largely related to the development of the Ukrainian crisis, in which the Arab countries took a neutral position, stating that “both countries are friends of the Arab countries.” Some of them even suggested that mediation become a platform for peace negotiations.
The League of Arab States (LAG), which unites more than 20 countries, even created a contact group regarding the situation in Ukraine. In Moscow, as Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said, “they respected the position expressed by the Arab countries in relation to the Ukrainian conflict,” but this limited the maneuverability of Russian diplomacy in the Arab direction, which was actively used by the diplomacy of the United States and its Western partners .
“Arab countries are under serious pressure from the West, which insists on taking a firm stance on the Ukraine crisis and condemning Russia’s military actions, expecting that they will participate in Russia’s isolation,” said Arab League head Ahmed Abu al-Ghait.
As for Russia, in order to start a “big game” in the region, it was necessary to first outline its serious interests there. Secondly, in addition to the resource of bilateral cooperation with individual countries, find support in a wider regional mechanism of interaction.
Finally, new conditions had to emerge that revealed the need for the Arab world to turn to Russia as the most constructive extra-regional player.
These, among other things, emerged as a result of Washington’s mistakes and miscalculations regarding Israel’s war with Hamas, which marked the rapid depreciation of US policy in the Middle East.
As one of the popular UAE news sites says “24. ae”, “the incredible happened quickly: the atmosphere surrounding the war in Ukraine changed in the Middle East, and the war between Israel and Hamas led to the emergence of disagreements between the countries of the region and the United States, when the political and other arguments of the West against Russia became in an empty phrase.
This created a “diplomatic vacuum” in the Arab world, which Russia quickly began to fill.
First, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Now the visit of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to Morocco was successful, where he took part in the meeting of the Forum for Russian-Arab Cooperation, which resumed work after a four-year break, which, according to Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Burit, “requires interaction between the Arab countries and Russia on new level.”
According to him, now “we are interested in raising the dialogue to a strategic level and forming a ‘road map’ for partnership”.
It is important to remember the following. The previous meeting at the level of foreign ministers of the RAFS countries was held in April 2019 in Moscow and was the largest in the history of this format. Then diplomats from 14 Arab countries arrived in Moscow.
But the meeting in Morocco broke the record for the number of representatives: high-ranking representatives of Russia and 15 other countries arrived in Marrakech: Palestine, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Bahrain, UAE, Yemen, Qatar, Mauritania, Egypt, Libya, Lebanon and Union of Comoros.
It is no coincidence that a day earlier, Lavrov took the initiative to convene an international conference on the Middle East settlement, in which all five members of the UN Security Council, as well as representatives of the League of Arab States, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Cooperation Council of Arab States participate from the Persian Gulf will take part.
As the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry said, this is “the only way to ensure that the problem will be solved forever.”
The bottom line was that Moscow had always advocated for the Arab League to work actively with the Middle East Quartet as a full participant in the peace process, identifying the well-known imperatives of a Middle East settlement in efforts to resolve the problems of its own region.
“This approach has already made it possible, in particular, to reach an agreement on the restoration of relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia, to speed up the process of comprehensive normalization between Syria and its Arab neighbors by returning Syria to the League of Arab States,” the Russian foreign minister emphasized minister in Marrakesh.
In general, the forum participants began to develop a desire to transfer the work of the Russian-Arab Economic and Cultural Forum on a permanent basis.
In this format, it is possible to solve specific problems and implement various general and individual projects on a wide range of commercial and economic issues.
From now on, as Lavrov noted, strengthening interaction with Arab countries is one of the “absolute priorities of Russian foreign policy.”
Now, in the medium term, the main task of the Arab countries is to avoid a situation in which they are involved directly or indirectly in a new regional conflict.
Moreover, the inter-religious divide in the region partially coincides with the geopolitical divide. In these conditions, Russia and the Arab countries should focus on long-term cooperation in the field of security and economic development. Given the breakthrough achieved in Morocco, this idea takes on added significance. The beginning of this process is set.
Translation: SM
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