The Biden administration has issued another warning to Syria’s neighbors against boosting ties with President Bashar al-Assad, but critics say the administration could be doing more to prevent Damascus’ return to the Arab fold. 

On Wednesday, Emirati Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed met with Assad in the Syrian capital for the second time since November 2021. Their latest meeting follows Assad’s March 2022 visit to the United Arab Emirates — his first to an Arab country since the Syrian revolution erupted in 2011. 

In a further sign of the region’s warming to Assad, the defense chiefs of Turkey and Syria held talks in Moscow last week. As Nazlan Ertan writes, their first official engagement in more than a decade came on the heels of several Turkish overtures to Damascus in the second half of 2022, including Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan himself raising the possibility of an Assad meeting. 

On Tuesday, State Department spokesperson Ned Price told reporters the administration does not support countries “upgrading their relations or expressing support to rehabilitate the brutal dictator Bashar al-Assad.”