ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad discussed refugees and the need to combat drug smuggling across during a meeting in Damascus on Monday.
The visit by Jordan’s top diplomat comes amid a shift in regional diplomacy with Arab countries increasing their engagement with the Assad regime following over a decade of isolation.
“The safe return of Syrian refugees to their villages and towns is a priority for the Syrian state,” Assad stressed during the meeting, as cited by Syrian state-run SANA. He added that the Syrian government was working to provide “the best environment for the return of refugees.”
Syrian state media added that Safadi said Jordan was ready to work together with Syria to ensure the safe return of refugees.
Jordan hosts around 670,000 Syrian refugees, with many of them living in Za’atari and Azraq camps, according to the UN Refugee Agency.
Relations between Arab nations and Syria were broken in 2011 over Damascus’ crackdown on protests that grew into a civil war. Gulf countries, particularly Saudi Arabia, supported the rebels while Riyadh’s regional rival, Iran, backed Assad.
In May, Syria returned to the Arab League, sparking criticism from the US and European ties who refuse to engage with the Assad regime, as well as from Syrian activists who have repeatedly warned against returning refugees to the war-torn country.
Over 13 million Syrians have been displaced since the start of the civil war, more than six million of which are refugees who have fled the war-torn country. Over 230,000 civilians were killed since the war broke out over a decade ago.
Certain members of the Arab League, particularly Jordan, are seeking greater security cooperation with Syria to deal with the cross-border drug smuggling issue. Investigations by media outlets have labeled Syria as a “narco-state” following the emergence of a trade of captagon.
Jordan has become a transit point of drugs, particularly captagon, being smuggled out of Syria. Captagon is an amphetamine-type stimulant which has been spreading across the drug market in the Middle East, with Syria as the main supplier, and Saudi Arabia the primary consumer of the substance.
Numerous US sanctions have also been slammed on Syrians involved in the drug trafficking, including two cousins of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as well as Lebanese affiliates.
A statement from the Jordanian foreign ministry said that Safadi and Assad agreed to form a joint committee to combat drug smuggling, and hold its first meeting in Amman as soon as possible.
Safadi emphasized danger represented by drug smuggling through the Syrian borders into Jordan and the necessity of cooperation to combat it.
In early May, an airstrike killed a prominent drug dealer and his family in southern Syria, with a war monitor stating that the strike had been carried out by Jordan. Amman has not confirmed whether it was behind the strike.
“We are not taking the threat of drug smuggling lightly. If we do not see effective measures to curb that threat, we will do what it takes to counter that threat, including taking military action inside Syria,” Safadi told in CNN several days before the strike.
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