Episode description

This week a meeting of Arab foreign ministers - including Syria's - took place in Jordan's capital, Amman. Officials have been discussing Syria's potential return to the Arab League, after 12 years of civil war. Hundreds of thousands of Syrians are dead, millions are refugees abroad, and a political settlement to the conflict remains elusive. But some of Syria’s neighbours are now keen to build closer relations with the Syrian regime.

A tentative normalisation of relations with President Assad has been years in the making. So what is driving it? What might a change in international relations mean for ordinary Syrians? And what does this diplomacy reveal about politics and power in the region?

Shaun Ley is joined by a panel of expert guests:

Rime Allaf - a Syrian-born writer and a former fellow at the Chatham House international affairs think tank in London. She is also a Board Member of the Syrian civil society organization The Day After

Steven Simon - served on the US National Security Council in the Obama administration as senior director for Middle Eastern Affairs from 2011 to 2012. He's now a Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and author of “Grand Delusion: The Rise and Fall of American Ambition in the Middle East”

Ismaeel Naar - Arab Affairs Editor for The National, a newspaper owned by the deputy prime minister of the United Arab Emirates who is also a member of the royal family of Abu Dhabi.

Also featuring:

Jawad Anani, an economist and Jordan's former foreign minister and deputy prime minister

Joel Rayburn, President Trump's special Envoy for Syria from 2018 to 2021

Photo: Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Saudi Arabia meets Bashar al-Assad on April 18, 2023 in Damascus, Syria. (Credit: Saudi Arabian Foreign Ministry/Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)