Top Arab lawmakers in Syria for talks with President Assad

By KAREEM CHEHAYEB
Associated Press

BEIRUT (AP) — A delegation of senior Mideast lawmakers is in Syria for talks with President Bashar Assad on bringing his country back into the fold of the Arab world. Sunday’s visit follows a mini-summit in Baghdad the previous day that affirmed the Arab League’s intentions of having Syria rejoin the group despite the country’s devastating civil war. The first to arrive was Egyptian Parliament Speaker Hanafy el-Gebaly, the most senior Egyptian official to visit Syria in over a decade. Syria was suspended from the Arab League in 2011, when an uprising against Assad’s rule descended into a brutal civil war. Lawmakers from nine Arab countries and also Palestinian representatives were in the delegation.