Bashar al-Assad “remains responsible and guilty for the death and suffering of countless Syrians”
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s visit to the United Arab Emirates has “deeply disappointed” the United States, US diplomacy spokesman Ned Price revealed on Saturday, urging allies to avoid normalizing ties with a regime accused of “horrible atrocities”.
President Assad’s surprise trip on Friday was his first official visit to an Arab country since civil war broke out in Syria in 2011, killing nearly half a million people.
The Syrian president was received by the de facto leader of the Emirates, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Mohammed bin Zayed, to discuss “fraternal relations” between the two countries, according to the official Emirati agency WAM.
The move appears to represent a sign of warming relations between Syria and the energy-rich United Arab Emirates – a key US ally that also normalized relations with Israel in 2020.
“We are deeply disappointed and troubled by this overt attempt to legitimize Bashar al-Assad,” Price said in a statement.
According to him, Bashar al-Assad “remains responsible and guilty for the death and suffering of countless Syrians, the displacement of more than half of the pre-war population, as well as the arbitrary detention and disappearance of more of 150,000 men, women and children”.
As US Secretary of State Antony reiterated, “Blinken, we do not support efforts to rehabilitate Assad, and we do not support those who normalize their relations” with the Syrian president, Mr. Price recalled.
“We have been clear about this with our partners… [et] we urge states considering engaging in dialogue with the Assad regime to seriously examine the atrocities committed by the regime,” he insisted.
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