Sources in the Syrian capital suggest that the purpose of the visit by the Iraqi security delegation, led by Major General Ahmed Al-Zarkani, Director General of Drug Control at the Ministry of Interior, to Damascus is likely to request “closing the gaps regarding drug trafficking” from its territories to neighboring countries.
This comes ahead of the upcoming meeting of the Arab Ministerial Contact Committee on Syria scheduled for May in Baghdad.
Yassin Sharif Al-Hajimi, Chargé d’Affaires of the Iraqi Embassy in Damascus, announced the arrival of the Iraqi delegation led by Al-Zarkani and held discussions with the Drug Control Administration in Syria, as reported by the newspaper “Al-Watan.”
Follow-up sources linked the visit of the Iraqi security delegation to Damascus with the meeting of the Arab Ministerial Contact Committee on Syria, scheduled to be held in Baghdad in May, as reported by “Al-Watan” citing Arab diplomatic sources in March.
The first meeting of the Arab Ministerial Contact Committee on Syria was held in Cairo in mid-August last year, attended by the foreign ministers of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Lebanon, in addition to the Secretary-General of the Arab League and the Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad, to follow up on the implementation of the Oman Declaration issued on May 1, 2023.
Follow-up sources indicated that Iraqi Interior Minister Abdul Amir Al-Shammari revealed in February last year a tendency for Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ Al-Sudani to make Iraq the “security hub for combating drugs.”
Al-Shammari announced the formation of a “joint communication cell with Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria” to combat drugs at a meeting held in Jordan on February 17 last year, with the participation of Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, to discuss the operation of combating drug trafficking, with the aim of reducing time and monitoring international drug smuggling gangs.
Sources suggest that the aim of the visit of the Iraqi security delegation is to request from Damascus “closing the gaps regarding drug trafficking before the next meeting of the Arab Ministerial Contact Committee on Syria in Baghdad,” after the Syrian territories have become the main source of drug trafficking to Jordan and Iraq, and from there to the Gulf countries.
It is worth mentioning that Damascus announced in late February last year that it had seized a shipment of Captagon within a truck while crossing Syrian territory, coming from one of the neighboring countries (without naming it), and heading to Iraq.
Jordan also suffers from the influx of drugs from Syria into its territories, and Damascus demands concrete steps to curb those operations as drug trafficking and arms smuggling across the Syrian borders pose a “threat to national security, and Jordan will continue to combat this threat and whoever stands behind it.”
According to observers, the drug file is what prompted Jordan to make efforts to restore Syria to the Arab League, and this file was one of the items for completing Arab normalization with Damascus, in addition to the files of the return of Syrian refugees and finding a political solution to the Syrian situation in line with UN resolutions.
Follow-up sources in Damascus previously told “Al-Sharq Al-Awsat” that the drug file in the region is becoming more complex, as militias affiliated with Iran and a number of influential figures in power are involved, as it is a major source of funding estimated by the American “Newlines Institute” for research in 2021 to be about $5.7 billion annually.
