On May 26, Syrian Tourism Minister Mohammed Rami Martini became the first Syrian government official to visit Saudi Arabia since the civil war began in 2011. Martini’s trip fueled speculation about a normalization between Riyadh and Damascus, as it coincided with a series of positive developments in Syrian-Saudi relations. On May 3, Saudi intelligence chief Lt. Gen. Khaled Humaidan met his Syrian counterpart Ali Mamlouk in Damascus. Hours after Martini’s arrival in Riyadh, Bouthaina Shabaan, a prominent adviser to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, expressed optimism about a swift breakthrough in Syrian-Saudi normalization talks.  

Despite these developments, there are grounds for skepticism about a swift revival of relations. Since Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman acknowledged that “Bashar is staying” in a March 2018 interview, there have been repeated failed attempts to facilitate a normalization between Syria and Saudi Arabia. One such attempt in 2018 saw Saudi Arabia offer reconstruction investments to Syria if Assad broke with Iran and Hezbollah. Saudi Arabia’s unwillingness to emulate the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, which reopened their embassies in Damascus in December 2018, further underscores the arduous path towards a Riyadh-Damascus rapprochement.

While recent events might be more than a false dawn, the most likely scenario is a gradual reestablishment of bilateral relations between Saudi Arabia and Syria. A Saudi commentator with close ties to the ruling family told Al-Monitor that a swift normalization between Saudi Arabia and Syria is unlikely due to anti-Assad sentiments in the kingdom. The commentator noted that these sentiments date back to Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri’s assassination in 2005 and intensified due to Saudi media coverage of the Syrian conflict, “which extensively covered Assad’s atrocities and framed the Alawite regime as apostates.” The commentator argued that the UAE could disregard anti-Assad sentiments more easily than Saudi Arabia, as the UAE's population mostly consists of non-Arab foreign nationals, and Riyadh will incrementally engage with Assad to mitigate public backlash.

Harun al-Aswad, a Syrian journalist based in Turkey, echoed these views in an interview with Al-Monitor. Aswad predicted that “relations between Riyadh and Damascus will not return suddenly” but argued that a series of rumors and leaks will “pave the way for the gradual return of relations between the two countries without causing a shock in public opinion.” Aswad is confident that Saudi Arabia’s normalization with Syria will ultimately go ahead because “the Syrian opposition has proven its failure” and Riyadh cannot “invest in rebels who work as mercenaries in Libya and Azerbaijan instead of facing Iranian expansion in Syria.”