Syria Says U.S. Allies Won't Help With Reconstruction

The U.S. has pressured allies to block Syria’s reinstatement into the Arab League, President Bashar al-Assad’s media adviser, Buthaina Shaaban, said in an interview Tuesday in Moscow. The restoration of Syria’s suspended membership could be more than symbolic, potentially transforming Damascus’s ties with the rest of the region and unlocking much-needed Gulf funding to rebuild after eight years of civil war.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo “went to the Gulf states and sent someone to Lebanon in order to stop the normalization of relations with Syria,” Shaaban said on the sidelines of a Middle East conference hosted by the Kremlin-backed Valdai Club. “It is an open secret really that the Americans are the ones who issued orders because they want to complete their agenda in Syria.”