Saudi Arabia to host Friends of Syria ministerial meeting

Saudi Arabia announced Saturday that it will host on Sunday the Friends of Syria meeting in the city of Jeddah which will include the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, and Qatar, Anadolu news agency reported.

The Saudi Press Agency quoted an official source at the Saudi Foreign Ministry as saying that “the meeting will discuss the overall situation in the region, as well as the latest developments in Syria”.

Earlier, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Foreign Minister Sameh Shukri will participate in the Friends of Syria meeting scheduled to take place in Saudi Arabia.

In another statement issued Saturday evening, the Egyptian Foreign Minister was quoted as saying that the meeting will take place on Sunday and that preparations to hold it took place over the past week to ten days, adding that the US threats to launch military strikes against Iraq and Syria “will be addressed during the meeting”.

Meanwhile, the secretary-general of the Syrian opposition coalition, Nasrallah Harir said in an earlier statement to Anadulo agency on Saturday that the coalition did not receive an invitation to attend a meeting in Saudi Arabia.

The Friends of Syria group which supports the Syrian opposition held its first meeting on February 24, 2012, in Tunisia with the participation of 114 countries. The meeting resulted in the formation of the mini Friends of Syria group which includes eleven countries, namely Turkey, the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Egypt and Jordan.

According to the United Nations statistics, the Syrian conflict which has been going for over three years has led to displacement of nearly ten million out of Syria’s 22.5 millions and to the killing of more than 191 thousand more.