Late last month at the UN General Assembly in New York, Bahrain’s Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa warmly embraced his Syrian counterpart Walid Moallem. The encounter raised many questions about Bahrain and, by extension, other Arab Gulf states’ current Syria policy. The following day, Khalifa stood by his decision to meet with Syria’s top diplomat, stating that it was “unplanned” and that both officials had had previous meetings at earlier junctures in the Syrian crisis.

In his words: “Greetings among brothers are a must, but this meeting took place at a time when the Arab stance is going through positive changes to ensure Arab action and activities on the Syrian issue. There is a need to re-take the Arab lead. Syria is an Arab country and its people are Arab brothers, and whatever is happening there concerns us before any other nation. Unfortunately, regional and international states are looking into the Syrian issue whereas we Arabs are absent.”

The encounter and Khalifa’s defense of it took scores of observers by surprise, perhaps for good reason. That Manama and Damascus’ chief diplomats were extremely cordial was quite contradictory, at least on certain levels. After the Syrian crisis erupted, Bahrain — along with all other Gulf Cooperation Council members, except Oman — recalled its ambassador from Damascus. In February 2016, the island kingdom threatened to join Saudi forces in waging a military intervention in Syria, resulting in Moallem responding that such a campaign against Damascus would result in Bahrainis and Saudis returning to the Arabian Peninsula in “coffins.” In April 2017, Bahrain backed the Donald Trump administration’s decision to fire dozens of missiles at the Shayrat air base near Homs in retaliation for a chemical attack. Thirteen months later, Manama also supported Israeli military strikes against the Syrian army.

Yet Bahrain’s true position on the Syrian crisis itself has had contradictions, particularly since Russia’s military interfered in the civil war in September 2015, which shifted the balance in Bashar al-Assad’s favor. In February 2016, King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa visited Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi for a highly symbolic meeting in which Putin gave the Bahraini ruler a stallion and the king presented Russia’s leader with a sword made of Damascus steel, called a “sword of victory.” Certain analysts interpreted those words to reflect Manama’s support for Moscow’s direct military intervention in Syria, which ultimately amounted to direct or indirect support for Assad’s regime.