Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem’s recent visit to Oman signals Damascus’ heightened interest in negotiating an end to its 4½-year-old civil war, an interest rendered more urgent by a series of on-the-ground setbacks for the Syrian army.
Moallem met Aug. 6 with his Omani counterpart, Yusuf bin Alawi in Muscat, Oman, to discuss “constructive efforts” aimed at ending the Syrian crisis. Syria’s state-run news agency reported the two diplomats “agreed to continue cooperation and coordination to achieve the shared goals of their peoples and governments.” Moallem’s visit, which came at Muscat’s invitation, marked his first trip to a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) state since the Syrian conflict erupted in 2011.
As early as 2011, Omani leader Sultan Qaboos bin Said hosted American and Iranian officials for talks, which laid the groundwork for last month’s historic nuclear agreement. Since the six world powers and Tehran signed the deal, numerous actors have signaled greater interest in pursuing diplomatic steps to resolve the Syrian crisis and in working together to counter the Islamic State (IS).
Although the Syrian crisis began as a popular uprising against an autocratic regime in Damascus, the conflict quickly took on a sectarian nature, with virtually all of the victims of the regime’s brutality being Sunni and the country’s religious minorities strongly backing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The role of outside actors further accentuated the Middle East’s geopolitical, ideological and sectarian fault lines as Sunni Gulf Arab sheikhdoms and Turkey backed the rebels, and Iran, Iraq and regional Shiite actors supported the regime. Oman — being neither Sunni nor Shiite majority, but instead Ibadi majority — had no interest in taking sides in this conflict. In October 2012, Alawi told both the regime and the Syrian National Council that “they need to re-examine their opinions, because killing, destroying and displacing Syrian civilians [is] unacceptable” and that Oman’s role in Syria’s conflict would be limited to providing humanitarian assistance and not arming groups — in contrast to other GCC members.
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