Syrian FM Calls On Refugees to Return Home

Syria’s foreign minister Monday called on the country’s refugees to return home, official media reported, without directly commenting on a US ban targeting them.

Walid Muallem “renewed the invitation of the government to Syrian refugees living in neighboring countries to return to their country.

The minister “stressed the country was ready to receive them and grant them a dignified life”, the agency reported, as Muallem met UN refugee agency chief Filippo Grandi.

On Friday, US President Donald Trump issued an executive order to suspend Syrian refugee arrivals indefinitely and impose tough controls on travelers from seven countries, including Syria, for 90 days.

The minister spoke after President Bashar Assad’s forces Sunday retook control of a key region that supplies water to the capital.

The army’s recapture of Wadi Barada from rebels comes a month after Assad’s forces pushed the armed opposition out of east Aleppo, taking back control of the whole of the northern city.

Syria’s rebels still hold to the northwestern province of Idlib, the Western Ghouta area outside the capital and areas in the south of the country.