"The ministers voted for Syria's return into the fold at the Arab League's headquarters in Cairo on Sunday," AJ details. "The decision was made in advance of the Arab League Summit in Saudi Arabia on May 19 and amid a flurry of regional normalization of ties with Damascus in recent weeks."

In March Saudi Arabia and Syria agreed to begin the process of reopening their mutual embassies, which followed on the heels of the China-brokered Saudi-Iranian rapprochement.

One analyst was quoted in regional media at the time as saying:

"The prevailing attitude can be defined as, 'times have changed, the Arab Spring is history and the region is transitioning towards a new future, with new geopolitical characteristics,'" the official, who himself recently reconciled with Damascus after defecting to the Syrian opposition in the summer of 2011, added.

The Arab League and many regional countries officially cut ties with Damascus in 2011 as the conflict there erupted. Saudi Arabia and allies like Qatar and the UAE had helped the US spearhead regime change efforts in Damascus. Russia and Iran came to the aid of Syria, however, in a war that took hundreds of thousands of lives and left much of the country in rubble.