new foreign minister has continued with regional visits aimed at building bridges with neighbors, arriving in the Qatari capital, Doha, on Sunday and meeting his Qatari counterpart.
Asaad Shaibani also met prime minister, using his visit to call on the United States to lift sanctions on Syria, many of which it imposed during the rule of ousted President .
Rebels led by the Islamist group overthrew Assad on December 8, following a lightning offensive that lasted less than two weeks.
Since then, Syria’s new authorities have been working on reestablishing diplomatic ties with regional and global governments, most of which had been severed due to Assad’s vicious crackdown on protesters.
What did the top diplomat say?
After meeting Qatari Minister of State Mohammed bin Abdulaziz Al-Khulaifi, Shaibani reiterated calls on the US to lift its sanctions on his country.
“We conveyed to Doha our concerns about the challenges related to the economic sanctions imposed on the Syrian people,” Syrian radio station Sham FM quoted him as saying.
The interim foreign minister called the measures a “barrier and an obstacle to the rapid recovery.”
Some 90% of Syrians live below the poverty line, with over half the population not knowing where their next meal would come from, according to the United Nations.
On Sunday, Syria’s new finance minister, Mohammed Abazeed, told the Reuters news agency that the government planned to hike next month’s salaries for many public sector employees by 400%.
The increase would be financed by existing state resources, in addition to regional aid, new investments, and the potential for unfreezing Syrian assets kept abroad.
Under Assad, public sector employees’ salaries edged around $25 (roughly €24.25), putting them below the poverty line.
New Syrian authorities build regional, global bridges
Shaibani’s visit to Qatar, a longtime supporter of Syria’s opposition and opponent of restoring ties with the Assad regime, is part of bigger movements in the region.
The interim top diplomat was in Saudi Arabia earlier this week. He also plans on visiting the United Arab Emirates and Jordan in the coming days, he said on social media on Friday.
On Friday, Shaibani also met his respectively, who both became the highest-ranking European officials to visit the Arab country since Assad’s ouster.
The US and European countries have been cautiously interacting with Syria since Assad’s overthrow, constantly voicing fears over how the new Islamist government would treat religious minorities and women.
Meanwhile, many the next day Assad was ousted, with German authorities more recently saying
rmt/sms (AFP, AP, Reuters)
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