The head of Egyptian diplomacy, Sameh Choukri, arrived in Damascus on Monday, February 27, confirming the warming of relations between Syria and several Arab countries since the earthquake which struck this country and neighboring Turkey.
Sameh Shukri's visit expresses "
solidarity with Syria in the face of the consequences of the earthquake
", the official Syrian agency Sana said, adding that he was met at Damascus international airport by his counterpart, Faisal al-Mokdad. .
“Egyptian Solidarity Message”
The visit to Syria by Sameh Choukri, who is also due to go to Turkey, "
is a message of solidarity from Egypt with these two brotherly countries after the earthquake
" of February 6 which killed nearly 46,000 people in the two country, according to the Egyptian Foreign Ministry.
Cairo had been on diplomatic stalemate with the two countries for a decade.
In the aftermath of the earthquake, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi called on his Syrian counterpart, Bashar al-Assad, for an unprecedented conversation between the two heads of state.
The heads of Egyptian and Syrian diplomacy had also spoken by telephone and Cairo sent three planes and two boats loaded with humanitarian aid to Syria.
Bashar al-Assad has been diplomatically isolated, especially from the Arab scene (Syria is still suspended from the Arab League, which sits in Cairo) since the beginning of the repression of a popular uprising born in 2011 and which degenerated into civil war .
An exit from diplomatic isolation
But since the earthquake that devastated Syria and Turkey, Arab countries have resumed contact and sent aid to Damascus, which is beginning to emerge from its diplomatic isolation.
On Sunday February 26, a delegation of heads of Arab parliaments was welcomed by Bashar al-Assad.
Among them was the Speaker of the Egyptian Parliament, Hanafy El-Gabaly, described by the Egyptian state press as "the
most senior Egyptian leader received in Damascus
" for more than a decade.
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However, relations were never completely severed between Cairo and Damascus and the highest official of the Syrian security services, General Ali Mamlouk, had even made his first public visit abroad in 2016 since the beginning of the war in Syria in 2011.
