The Arab League welcomed back Syria's government, ending a more than decade-long suspension and securing President Bashar al-Assad's return to the Arab fold after years of isolation.

• In November 2011, the body suspended Damascus over its crackdown on peaceful protests which began earlier that year and which spiralled into a conflict that has killed more than 500,000 people, displaced millions and battered the country's infrastructure and industry.
• While the front lines have mostly quietened, large parts of the country's north remain outside government control, and no political solution has yet been reached to the 12-year-old conflict.