Sheikh Mohammed recalls first meeting with Bashar Al Assad

Dubai - "Since my youth and throughout adulthood, Syria to me has been one of the most important nations in the region."

In the 42th chapter of his latest book, Qissati, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, talks about Syria and the war it has witnessed. He also talks about his first meeting with Bashar al-Assad.
Since my youth and throughout adulthood, Syria to me has been one of the most important nations in the region. The home of civilisation, quintessentially Arab, Syria was the land of nature and beauty, history and culture.
Syria sparks many emotions in the heart of every Arab, be it feelings of love for its people and its civilisation, or of sadness for the war and destruction that have gripped it.
As I reminisce about beloved Syria, I recall the late 1990s when Bashar al-Assad visited Dubai. At that time his father, Hafez al-Assad, was the president. It was possibly his last days as such and the question of Bashar al-Assad taking power was only a matter of time.
I wanted Bashar al-Assad to spend some private time with me, away from his entourage. I asked an official to go with the escorting delegation in one car and asked Bashar al-Assad to accompany me. I drove, as usual. The convoy followed and at some point, as we entered the city, I gave orders to the convoy to make a right turn, while l turned left without any warning.
In the car mirror I saw that the convoy had followed my order as requested, and soon I saw the cars all come to a halt. His security men emerged and started sprinting towards us because they could not turn their cars around in the traffic. My car, however, soon slipped away and we were out of view. It was just like a scene from a movie!
Sitting in the passenger seat, al-Assad asked me what was going on. I said to him: "I thought it would be a nice idea to experience Dubai away from all the formality and protocol."
A few years later, he visited Dubai again, but this time he came as President Bashar al-Assad. He asked me, "How does the government of Dubai manage its city?" He had a genuine desire to develop Syria's government and administration.
At the beginning of his reign, al-Assad tried to liberalise the economy in Syria; allowing foreign banks to open, enabling citizens to open foreign currency accounts and inviting foreign investors to invest in Syria.
I remember that I sent a delegation there to identify potential investment opportunities and they came back to me with some good ideas.
He was then dragged into a very different world, watching the bloodshed and destruction that rained down on Syria, devouring anything in its way and despoiling a civilised culture that dates back millennia.
I read a United Nations report about the ravages of the Syrian war: More than 400,000 dead - most of them civilians - five million refugees forced to leave the country, six million internally displaced persons and about $400 billion in infrastructural damages.
I sincerely hope that Syria will one day succeed in healing and resurrecting its broken society. The Syrian people, who built 40 civilisations, are capable of building a better new one. Of this, I am utterly convinced.
In what he is calling his "incomplete biography", His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, has broken his latest book, Qissati (My Story), into 50 chapters, narrating 50 stories in his 50 years of serving the nation. Khaleej Times got a signed copy of the book from the Dubai Ruler and everyday, we will be featuring excerpts from each of the 50 chapters.

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