Syria swears in ambassador to Tunisia days after Saudi embassy re-opening

A Syrian ambassador to Tunisia was sworn in on Monday before President Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s SANA state news agency reported.

Muhamad Muhammad was sworn in at a ceremony attended by the Syrian president, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Faisal Mekdad and Minister of Presidential Affairs Mansour Azzam.

The move came days after Syria reopened its embassy in Saudi Arabia after a decade, amid increasing openness to the Syrian regime among Arab states.

Syria and Tunisia jointly announced the reopening of the Syrian embassy in Tunisia in April, as well as the impending appointment of a Syrian ambassador to Tunis.

Damascus accepted the credentials of Tunisian ambassador Muhammad al-Mahdhabi in June.

The Syrian regime was politically isolated after the outbreak of war in Syria in 2011, when Assad’s forces violently suppressed pro-democracy protests.

Last May, President Assad was welcomed to the Arab League summit in Jeddah for the first time in 12 years.

Syrian officials also attended a meeting in the Jordanian capital Amman earlier this year and that resulted in the Amman statement, which detailed a series of ‘step by step’ actions that Syria and Arab states would take to normalise ties, in accordance with UN Resolution 2254 which calls for a political transition in Syria.

Despite the statement, Damascus has continued to reject a political transition and has failed to combat drug smuggling across the Jordan-Syria border.

Late in September, the Arab League suspended talks with the Assad regime after its reported refused to cooperate with efforts by Arab League countries to end the trade in the illegal amphetamine Captagon.