Syria’s foreign minister officially reopened the country’s embassy in London on Nov. 13 after more than a decade-long closure, the latest step in Syria's reintegration into the international community after the ouster of former President Bashar al-Assad.
The visit by Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani to the United Kingdom came after a historic visit to Washington by interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa, the first by a president from Syria since the country’s independence in 1946.
Shibani, speaking at an event held by the London-based Chatham House international affairs think tank, said that his meeting with his British counterpart, Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, was “successful.”
“Relations between Syria and Britain are advanced relations and we are not talking about opening a new page — we are talking about deepening these relations,” he said.
Shibani also said that the complete removal of U.S. Caesar Act sanctions is now “a matter of time.”
Following Assad’s fall, while some countries were initially wary of al-Sharaa’s past as an Islamist militant, he said that “the United Kingdom had a progressive position compared to other countries.”
“It removed sanctions early and opened relations with the new Syrian government quickly,” he said. “It supported us in the (U.N.) Security Council and also supported us in several thorny issues.”
While the new Syrian government has won broad support from countries that shunned Assad’s government after a brutal crackdown against protesters by his security forces in 2011 spiraled into a 14-year civil war, some have remained concerned about the situation of minorities in the new order.
Meanwhile, a new round of clashes between Druze armed groups and government forces in the province of Sweida in southern Syria had subsided Nov. 14 but left fears of another escalation.
Clashes the day before led to both sides blaming each other for violating a ceasefire that ended several days of violent fighting in July. There were reports of people wounded on both sides, but no deaths reported.
The National Guard, the de facto military in Sweida, accused government forces of launching an attack on the town of al-Majdal Thursday, “employing heavy and medium weapons and attack drones, in an aggressive attempt to breach our defense lines and target vital locations.”
“Our forces bravely and with high combat efficiency repelled this attack, inflicting heavy losses on the attacking forces in terms of equipment and personnel,” it said in a statement.
The government in Damascus accused the Sweida factions of violating the ceasefire first.
Mustafa al-Bakour, the Damascus-appointed governor of Sweida province, said “some factions and the so-called National Guard” launched “attacks on de-escalation points.”
