Syrian President Bashar Assad on Sunday arrived in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) — his second trip to the Gulf in a month — in an attempt to restore ties with his country’s Arab neighbours.

Last month’s earthquakes which killed tens of thousands of people in Syria and Turkey, spurred renewed efforts to bring Damascus back into the Arab fold after ostracism that began with the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011.

Assad made a similar visit to Oman last month.

What happened in Abu Dhabi?
UAE president Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan greeted Assad and his wife Asma in the capital, Abu Dhabi, the official news agency WAM said, before high-level meetings at the presidential palace.

The discussions “explored ways of enhancing cooperation to accelerate stability and progress in Syria and the region,” the Emirati president said in a statement.

“Syria has been absent from its brothers for too long, and the time has come for it to return to them and to its Arab surroundings,” WAM cited Mohamed as telling Assad.

The Emirati president called for efforts to facilitate the repatriation of Syrian refugees and backed engagement between Syria and Turkey, which has for years backed rebels fighting Assad’s government.

Assad, meanwhile praised the UAE’s role in boosting ties between Arab countries, according to a statement by the Syrian presidency.

He said that relations with Arab states should be “fraternal” and said the severing of ties had been an “incorrect principle in politics.”

The UAE restored relations with Syria four years ago, having cut ties around the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011, which erupted when Assad’s government brutally suppress pro-democracy protesters.

Syria’s neighbors denounced the use of excessive military force to quell the uprising, prompting Damascus’ expulsion from the Cairo-based Arab League.

Sunday’s visit was Assad’s third to the UAE since the war broke out. The first was in March last year, followed by a second in January.

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