Arab League foreign ministers agreed on Sunday to bring Syria back into the pan-Arab organization after a 12-year suspension to quell protests that threatened to topple the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, an Iraqi foreign ministry spokesman said. Ministry of Ahmed al-Sahaf, reports EFE.

“A meeting of Arab foreign ministers agreed to suppress Syria in the Arab League,” Al-Sahaf said, according to the official Iraqi news agency INA.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shukri opened an emergency meeting on Sunday in Cairo. “We have a historic responsibility to be with the Syrian people to help them turn the sad page of their history,” said a senior Egyptian diplomat.

In his speech, he noted that “the Syrian government is responsible for reaching a political solution” and that “a military solution is not realistic.”

The Arab League’s final statement on the decision is still awaited, and is expected to include conditions set for Syria’s return to the pan-Arab entity.

Some of the conditions expected to be put forward are the return of refugees to Syria, the fate of the missing and the resumption of a joint UN-Syrian opposition committee to draft a new constitution, a process that has stalled for years.

Syria’s membership in the pan-Arab body was suspended following a brutal crackdown by Assad’s government in response to a popular uprising against him in 2011 that later led to armed conflict.

The same reason has led many countries in the region to sever or cool relations with Damascus, but some have orchestrated an apparent rapprochement after the earthquakes that hit Syria in February.

In addition, Arab reconciliation with Syria, promoted mainly by Saudi Arabia, became even more controversial after the country and Iran, a close ally of the Assad regime, normalized relations in early March.

Qatar, one of the main supporters of the Syrian opposition, became the main obstacle to the decision to return Syria to the League of Arab States. (Agerpress)