Bashar al-Assad of Syria has been invited by the United Arab Emirates to the COP28 Climate Summit, which will start on November 30 in Dubai.
Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, president of the UAE and ruler of Abu Dhabi, had extended an offer to Assad to attend COP28, according to a tweet from the UAE embassy in Damascus on Sunday.
On Monday, the invitation was also verified by SANA, Syria’s official news agency.
It might lead to diplomatic issues for nations that continue to put sanctions on Assad’s regime. If Assad attends, it will be his first major meeting since the deadly civil war in Syria began in 2011.
The UN climate summit has already attracted controversy for appointing as its president Sultan Al Jaber, the CEO of the state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, one of the world’s biggest oil and gas producers.
A COP28 spokesperson told Reuters in a statement this week: “COP28 is committed to an inclusive COP process that produces transformational solutions. This can only happen if we have everyone in the room.”
In March, Assad visited the UAE on an official invitation for the first time since the Syrian civil war began. It was also his first visit to an Arab state since 2011.
Earlier this month, Arab nations agreed to re-admit Syria into the Arab League despite repeated objections from the United States to ending the more than decade-long isolation of a regime that it holds accountable for the deaths of more than 300,000 civilians and displacement of millions in the country’s civil war.