The Arab League summit is being held in Saudi Arabia from 19 May. Syria has been included in it with much flurry ahead of the conference. Syrian President Bashar Assad left for Saudi Arabia on Thursday to attend the Arab League summit. This will be his first visit to Saudi Arabia since the 2011 Syrian conflict. The President's Office gave this information. The Arab League summit will begin on Friday.

What happened that Syria was suspended

The 22-member league will meet in the Saudi city of Jeddah. Relations between Syria and Saudi Arabia have deteriorated since Assad took office in 2000 following the death of his late father, former President Hafez Assad. Relations between the two countries ended in 2012 following the conflict in Syria. Last week they agreed to reopen their embassies. Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad visited Riyadh in April and his Saudi counterpart Prince Faisal bin Farhan visited Damascus and met Assad. Mekdad also attended a meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Jeddah on Wednesday ahead of the summit.

In recent weeks there has been an effort to rapidly improve relations with Damascus. In fact, Syria was expelled from the Arab League in 2011 when Syrian President Bashar al-Assad ordered a crackdown on protesters in March 2011. After this decision of President Assad, civil war started in Syria and about 5 lakh people were killed. About 2.25 crore people were forced to be displaced. Therefore, Syria's membership of the Arab League was revoked.

Know about Arab League

The Arab League is a regional organization of Arab states, located in North Africa, West Africa, East Africa and West Asia. The Arab League was formed on 22 March 1945 in Cairo, the capital of Egypt. Initially it had 6 members. Egypt, Iraq, Transjordan (renamed Jordan in 1949), Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. At the same time, on 5 May 1945, Yemen also joined this group. Currently, the Arab League has 22 members. Syria's participation was suspended from 16 November 2011 until 7 May 2023 and has now been reinstated.