Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, welcomes Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese president, at Damascus airport on Sunday:
From the Times (£):
Omar al-Bashir, the president of Sudan, who has been indicted for war crimes, has become the first Arab leader to meet President Assad since the start of the Syrian war nearly eight years ago.
Mr Bashir was flown to Syria by the Russian air force for what human rights activists described as “a genocide summit”. The International Criminal Court issued a warrant for his arrest in 2009.
He stands accused of responsibility for war crimes and genocide in ending a civil war in the Sudanese province of Darfur. Assad has not been indicted, partly thanks to the Russian veto at the UN security council, but is accused by human rights groups of overseeing mass murder in prisons and mass killings of civilians in the Syrian conflict. Neither country has yet said in detail what the two leaders discussed. However, there have been signs in recent months of the rehabilitation of both men, at least in the Middle East. [...]
Mr Bashir remains broadly a pariah over the mass killings in Darfur but he switched sides in the rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia, sending troops to support the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen. He has since also appeared at summits in Riyadh, Jordan and Turkey.
The rehabilitation of Assad as the Syrian war drifts to a close or stalemate is less certain. However, Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed al-Khalifa, the foreign minister of Bahrain, warmly greeted his Syrian counterpart, Walid al-Muallem, at the UN in September, suggesting a potential thaw with the Gulf states that helped to fund and arm Syrian rebels.
The influence of Putin has been suggested:
When Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir landed in Syria on Sunday – the first visit by an Arab League leader to the country since the start of its civil war – it was from a Russian plane that he disembarked.
This detail raised questions over Moscow’s role in brokering the visit, one that Syrian President Bashar Al Assad said will serve as a “strong push” towards restoring bilateral ties.
Russia, a vital ally of the Syrian government, extended its diplomatic influence in recent months to secure support for Mr Assad’s continued control over Syria from rivals who once sought his removal, including western governments and Arab League states.
Although Sudan never publicly supported attempts to overthrow Mr Assad, its backing of an Arab League decision to impose sanctions on Damascus and terminate its membership in 2011 strained once-close relations.
“[Mr] Bashir's visit to Syria has all the markings of [Mr] Putin and a few others. The idea is to bring Syria back into the international community and the first step is bringing the Arabs together,” said Theodore Karasik, a senior adviser at the Gulf State Analytics think tank. “Russia wants political processes to move quicker in the new year, especially with its Arab partners.”
Moscow has not publicly acknowledged any involvement in Sunday’s meeting but the Russian Foreign Ministry said it hoped it would contribute to reinstating Syria’s membership of the Arab League. [...[
Russia is one of Sudan’s principal backers at the UN Security Council and it has opposed initiatives to send peacekeeping missions to Darfur, where the government is accused of human rights abuses.
And, from the Jerusalem Post:
Qatar’s Al-Jazeera and Iran’s Press TV both highlighted the visit, without mentioning any negative connotations attached to it, such as the human rights record of both Sudan and Syria. Press TV emphasized that Sudan and Syria both oppose the West’s interference in the region, and that Sudan and Syria should concentrate on “Arabism” and “Arab causes.” Iran’s media tried to argue that Saudi Arabia was at fault for “arming militants seeking to overthrow the government of Assad.” The meeting came as Assad also met Hossein Jaberi Ansari, an advisor to Iran’s foreign minister. The coincidence should not be overlooked that a Sudanese delegation was in Damascus just when the Iranians were. Syria is trying to show it is not isolated and that it can defeat “foreign interference,” which increasingly is the way Damascus refers to the role of the US in eastern Syria and Turkey in the north.
Concern about the West's interference in the region is somewhat ironic, given that the big players here are Russia, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. The West's influence is negligible verging on non-existent. And, despite what many on the left might assume, it's hard to note any major improvement here, what with the two leading genocidaires of the day meeting and greeting to general murmurs of approval.