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Oman FM to Asharq Al-Awsat: We Are Coordinating with Riyadh over Regional Issues

Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi.
Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi.
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Oman FM to Asharq Al-Awsat: We Are Coordinating with Riyadh over Regional Issues

Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi.
Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi.

Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi revealed that the upcoming summit between Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques and Sultan Haitham bin Tariq will witness the launch of a coordination council between the two neighboring countries.

Sultan Haitham will head to the Kingdom on Sunday on an official two-day visit.

Joint coordination
The council will act as the framework for several agreements between Riyadh and Muscat, added the FM in an interview to Asharq Al-Awsat.

“Coordination and consultations are always necessary, especially between brothers and neighboring countries,” he added. “The Kingdom and the Sultanate share several interests.”

The council will pave the way for the next phase in cooperation and the summit will likely witness the signing of several agreements and memoranda of understanding in several fields, Albusaidi continued.

He predicted that relations will witness a qualitative leap in the future, especially in wake of the anticipated historic opening of the first direct land border between them.

That will lead the way for promising logistic projects between them, he predicted.

Asked about Oman’s role at the AlUla summit in January that achieved Gulf reconciliation, Albusaidi explained that from the start, Muscat sought to support the Kuwaiti initiative that was proposed by late Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah and continued by his successor Sheikh Nawaf al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah.

“We are now working with the Gulf Cooperation Council foreign ministers and secretary general to follow up on the summit between late Sultan Qaboos and Sheikh Sabah that was held in AlUla in January 2020,” he continued.

Regional stability
Moreover, he stressed that Saudi Arabia and Oman are closely coordinating their stances over a number of regional issues, starting with the conflict in Yemen.

Yemen, continued the minister, is of great importance on the regional and international scenes.
“We are working tirelessly and constantly to stop the suffering of the brotherly Yemeni people, to end the war and help as much as possible to achieve peace and stability,” Albusaidi stated.

Muscat supports the Kingdom’s initiative to reach a ceasefire in Yemen, as well as the Riyadh Agreement and the efforts of the United Nations and United States envoys to the war-torn country.

“Our common goal is ending the conflict according to a solution that respects the concerns of all parties and helps them reach understandings that provide Yemen and the Yemenis with stability and coexistence,” he added.

Albusaidi denied that Oman had proposed a solution to the crisis. He dismissed the claims as rumors that spread when an Omani delegation paid a visit to Sanaa last month.

“There is no Omani initiative, rather Omani efforts to reach agreement between all parties,” he clarified.

Asked about the steps the Sultanate has taken to persuade the warring parties to return to negotiations, the FM replied: “We believe all parties want to resolve the crisis and achieve peace. We are working on achieving that through attempting to bridge divides and address differences between the parties.”

On Muscat’s hosting of the Iranian foreign minister in April and his meeting with Houthi officials, Albusaidi said: “We believe that Iran supports efforts to achieve the desired peace and stability.”

Turning to Iran and whether it will change its behavior with the election of Ebrahim Raisi as president, the FM said: “All behaviors can change and develop if the conviction and political desire is there.”

“We believe that these convictions and this desire are growing for the sake of regional security and peace,” he remarked.

He also denied that Oman was organizing a regional dialogue with Tehran, saying that any such dialogue should be proposed by the countries of the region themselves.

Arab relations
On the Arab scene, Albusaidi stressed Oman’s support for Syria’s return to the Arab League.

Sultan Haitham was the first Gulf leader to congratulate Bashar Assad on his reelection as president in May. Muscat also hosted Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal al-Meqdad in March.

“We call for the resumption of fraternal relations and clearing the inter-Arab air at all times and circumstances,” he added.

Days ago, Albusaidi received a telephone call from his Israeli counterpart Yair Lapid. The foreign ministry underscored Oman’s stance on the need to establish an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Commenting on relations with Israel, Albusaidi denied that Oman will become the third Gulf state, after the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, to normalize relations with Israel even though it supports the Abraham Accords.

“Oman believes in the concept of achieving just, comprehensive and lasting peace based on the two-state solution. We will not be the third Gulf state to normalize ties, but we support the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people and we respect sovereign decisions of countries as we expect other countries to respect ours,” he stressed.

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Interviews

Goldrich to Asharq Al-Awsat: No US Withdrawal from Syria

US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Ethan Goldrich during the interview with Asharq Al-Awsat
US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Ethan Goldrich during the interview with Asharq Al-Awsat
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Goldrich to Asharq Al-Awsat: No US Withdrawal from Syria

US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Ethan Goldrich during the interview with Asharq Al-Awsat
US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Ethan Goldrich during the interview with Asharq Al-Awsat

Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Ethan Goldrich has told Asharq Al-Awsat that the US does not plan to withdraw its forces from Syria.

The US is committed to “the partnership that we have with the local forces that we work with,” he said.

Here is the full text of the interview.

Question: Mr. Goldrich, thank you so much for taking the time to sit with us today. I know you are leaving your post soon. How do you assess the accomplishments and challenges remaining?

Answer: Thank you very much for the chance to talk with you today. I've been in this position for three years, and so at the end of three years, I can see that there's a lot that we accomplished and a lot that we have left to do. But at the beginning of a time I was here, we had just completed a review of our Syria policy, and we saw that we needed to focus on reducing suffering for the people in Syria. We needed to reduce violence. We needed to hold the regime accountable for things that are done and most importantly, from the US perspective, we needed to keep ISIS from reemerging as a threat to our country and to other countries. At the same time, we also realized that there wouldn't be a solution to the crisis until there was a political process under resolution 2254, so in each of these areas, we've seen both progress and challenges, but of course, on ISIS, we have prevented the reemergence of the threat from northeast Syria, and we've helped deal with people that needed to be repatriated out of the prisons, and we dealt with displaced people in al-Hol to reduce the numbers there. We helped provide for stabilization in those parts of Syria.

Question: I want to talk a little bit about the ISIS situation now that the US troops are still there, do you envision a timeline where they will be withdrawn? Because there were some reports in the press that there is a plan from the Biden administration to withdraw.

Answer: Yeah. So right now, our focus is on the mission that we have there to keep ISIS from reemerging. So I know there have been reports, but I want to make clear that we remain committed to the role that we play in that part of Syria, to the partnership that we have with the local forces that we work with, and to the need to prevent that threat from reemerging.

Question: So you can assure people who are saying that you might withdraw, that you are remaining for the time being?

Answer: Yes, and that we remain committed to this mission which needs to continue to be pursued.

Question: You also mentioned the importance of humanitarian aid. The US has been leading on this. Are you satisfied with where you are today on the humanitarian front in Syria?

Answer: We remain committed to the role that we play to provide for humanitarian assistance in Syria. Of the money that was pledged in Brussels, we pledged $593 million just this past spring, and we overall, since the beginning of the conflict, have provided $18 billion both to help the Syrians who are inside of Syria and to help the refugees who are in surrounding countries. And so we remain committed to providing that assistance, and we remain keenly aware that 90% of Syrians are living in poverty right now, and that there's been suffering there. We're doing everything we can to reduce the suffering, but I think where we would really like to be is where there's a larger solution to the whole crisis, so Syrian people someday will be able to provide again for themselves and not need this assistance.

Question: And that's a perfect key to my next question. Solution in Syria. you are aware that the countries in the region are opening up to Assad again, and you also have the EU signaling overture to the Syrian regime and Assad. How do you deal with that?

Answer: For the United States, our policy continues to be that we will not normalize with the regime in Syria until there's been authentic and enduring progress on the goals of resolution 2254, until the human rights of the Syrian people are respected and until they have the civil and human rights that they deserve. We know other countries have engaged with the regime. When those engagements happen, we don't support them, but we remind the countries that are engaged that they should be using their engagements to push forward on the shared international goals under 2254, and that whatever it is that they're doing should be for the sake of improving the situation of the Syrian people.

Question: Let's say that all of the countries decided to talk to Assad, aren’t you worried that the US will be alienated in the process?

Answer: The US will remain true to our own principles and our own policies and our own laws, and the path for the regime in Syria to change its relationship with us is very clear, if they change the behaviors that led to the laws that we have and to the policies that we have, if those behaviors change and the circumstances inside of Syria change, then it's possible to have a different kind of relationship, but that's where it has to start.

Question: My last question to you before you leave, if you have to pick one thing that you need to do in Syria today, what is it that you would like to see happening today?

Answer: So there are a number of things, I think that will always be left and that there are things that we will try to do, to try to make them happen. We want to hold people accountable in Syria for things that have happened. So even today, we observed something called the International Day for victims of enforced disappearances, there are people that are missing, and we're trying to draw attention to the need to account for the missing people. So our step today was to sanction a number of officials who were responsible for enforced disappearances, but we also created something called the independent institution for missing persons, and that helps the families, in the non-political way, get information on what's happened. So I'd like to see some peace for the families of the missing people. I'd like to see the beginning of a political process, there hasn't been a meeting of the constitutional committee in two years, and I think that's because the regime has not been cooperating in political process steps. So we need to change that situation. And I would, of course, like it's important to see the continuation of the things that we were talking about, so keeping ISIS from reemerging and maintaining assistance as necessary in the humanitarian sphere. So all these things, some of them are ongoing, and some of them remain to be achieved. But the Syrian people deserve all aspects of our policy to be fulfilled and for them to be able to return to a normal life.