Saudi Foreign Ministry: There is a new development in the Kingdom’s stance towards the opposition in Syria

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said on Thursday that there is a new development in his country’s stance towards the Syrian opposition.

This came during a joint press conference by the Saudi Foreign Minister with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov, in which he said, “There is no presence of a Syrian opposition with Saudi influence.”

The Saudi minister emphasized that the Kingdom generally supports the Syrian opposition to work for the benefit of Syria and the Syrian people, and every Syrian opposition works on this basis.

Bin Farhan explained that the talks dealt with the importance of continuing to support efforts aimed at resolving the Syrian crisis, in particular the efforts of the Constitutional Committee to get it out of its civil war and restore it to stability.

He pointed to the importance of eliminating Iranian interference in Syria that impedes reaching real solutions that serve the Syrian people.

And the Saudi Foreign Minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah, held an official session of talks on Thursday, with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, during his official visit to the Russian capital, Moscow.

Observers believe that the Saudi Foreign Minister’s description of the war in Syria as “civil” is a sudden shift in its position on the Syrian conflict, which was considered one of the biggest supporters of the opposition.

The head of the opposition Syrian National Coalition, Nasr al-Hariri, sent a message a few days ago to the Saudi Foreign Minister, and between the lines there is the revival of Saudi Arabia’s role in the Syrian file, which began to retreat since the Russian intervention in 2015 until it reached the stage of almost complete absence after the Gulf crisis.

Hariri’s message to the Saudi Foreign Minister carried the Kingdom’s call to intervene in the implementation of the political solution in Syria, and to push the Arab League to take effective positions to implement international decisions related to the Syrian issue, foremost of which are the Geneva Declaration and Resolution 2254.

Saudi Arabia has repeatedly announced its rejection of “Assad” remaining in power, before it was silent about this demand in the last two years and spoke about the need to achieve a political settlement, which was considered by observers to reflect a radical shift towards the regime of Bashar al-Assad.