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Damascus: Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi State media reported that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad met Wednesday in Damascus in an attempt to boost cooperation between the two allies.
Tehran has been the main backer of the Assad government since the uprising turned into all-out war in March 2011 and has played a key role in turning the tide in his favor.
Iran has sent dozens of military advisors and thousands of Iranian-backed fighters from across the Middle East to fight on Assad’s side. With the help of Russia and Iran, Syrian government The forces have taken control of large parts of the country in recent years.
In an interview with the Arabic-language Al-Mayadeen TV channel, Raisi called for reconstruction efforts and the return to the country of refugees who fled the country’s war.
Raisi, who is leading a high-ranking political and economic delegation on a two-day visit to Syria, was received upon his arrival at Damascus International Airport on Wednesday by Syrian Minister of Economy Samer Al-Khalil.
Syrian state media quoted Raisi as telling Assad during the meeting, “Syria’s government and people have gone through great difficulties… Today we can say that you have overcome all these problems and won despite the threats and sanctions imposed on you.”
He is also scheduled to visit the shrines of Sayyidah Zainab and Sayyidah Ruqayyah, both of which are holy sites in Shiite Islam, as well as the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which is a memorial to the Syrian soldiers killed in battle.
The last Iranian president to visit Syria was President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2010.
The Iranian president’s visit comes at a time when some Arab countries, including regional powers Egypt and Saudi Arabia, have opened up to Assad and their foreign ministers have visited Damascus in recent weeks. The Syrian foreign minister also visited the Saudi capital, Riyadh, in April, the first such visit since the two countries cut ties in 2012.
In March, Iran and Saudi Arabia, the main backers of Syrian opposition fighters, reached an agreement in China to restore diplomatic relations and reopen embassies after seven years of tensions.
Reconciliation between Iran and Saudi Arabia is likely to have positive effects on countries in the region as both countries have fought proxy wars, including Syria.
Syria was widely shunned by Arab governments for Assad’s brutal crackdown on protesters and a breakdown in relations that culminated in Syria’s expulsion from the Arab League in 2011. Since then, the conflict has killed nearly half a million people and displaced half of Syria’s pre-war population. 23 million.
“America and its allies failed on all fronts against the resistance, and they were unable to achieve any of their goals,” Iran’s new ambassador to Syria, Hossein Akbari, told the official IRNA news agency on Tuesday.
Like Syria, Iran is under Western sanctions that, combined with decades of mismanagement, have sent its national currency to new lows. Months of anti-government protests have failed to bring down the ruling clergy and return to the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, which lifted sanctions in exchange for curbs on Iran’s nuclear programme.
In 2015, Iran’s currency was trading at 32,000 rials to the dollar when it signed a nuclear deal with world powers. In February, it hit a record low of 600,000.
The visit of the Iranian president comes a week after the Minister of Roads and Urban Development, Mehrdad Bazarbash, met with Assad in Damascus, where he delivered a message from the Iranian president supporting the expansion of economic relations between the two countries, according to the official Iranian news agency.
Iran’s military presence in Syria has been a major concern for Israel, which has vowed to stop Iranian entrenchment along its northern border. Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on targets in government-held areas of Syria in recent years – but it rarely acknowledges it. Since the beginning of 2023, Syrian officials have attributed dozens of strikes on Syrian territory to Israel, the latest of which was at dawn on Tuesday, and the international airport of the northern city of Aleppo was taken out of service.
Tehran has been the main backer of the Assad government since the uprising turned into all-out war in March 2011 and has played a key role in turning the tide in his favor.
Iran has sent dozens of military advisors and thousands of Iranian-backed fighters from across the Middle East to fight on Assad’s side. With the help of Russia and Iran, Syrian government The forces have taken control of large parts of the country in recent years.
In an interview with the Arabic-language Al-Mayadeen TV channel, Raisi called for reconstruction efforts and the return to the country of refugees who fled the country’s war.
Raisi, who is leading a high-ranking political and economic delegation on a two-day visit to Syria, was received upon his arrival at Damascus International Airport on Wednesday by Syrian Minister of Economy Samer Al-Khalil.
Syrian state media quoted Raisi as telling Assad during the meeting, “Syria’s government and people have gone through great difficulties… Today we can say that you have overcome all these problems and won despite the threats and sanctions imposed on you.”
He is also scheduled to visit the shrines of Sayyidah Zainab and Sayyidah Ruqayyah, both of which are holy sites in Shiite Islam, as well as the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which is a memorial to the Syrian soldiers killed in battle.
The last Iranian president to visit Syria was President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2010.
The Iranian president’s visit comes at a time when some Arab countries, including regional powers Egypt and Saudi Arabia, have opened up to Assad and their foreign ministers have visited Damascus in recent weeks. The Syrian foreign minister also visited the Saudi capital, Riyadh, in April, the first such visit since the two countries cut ties in 2012.
In March, Iran and Saudi Arabia, the main backers of Syrian opposition fighters, reached an agreement in China to restore diplomatic relations and reopen embassies after seven years of tensions.
Reconciliation between Iran and Saudi Arabia is likely to have positive effects on countries in the region as both countries have fought proxy wars, including Syria.
Syria was widely shunned by Arab governments for Assad’s brutal crackdown on protesters and a breakdown in relations that culminated in Syria’s expulsion from the Arab League in 2011. Since then, the conflict has killed nearly half a million people and displaced half of Syria’s pre-war population. 23 million.
“America and its allies failed on all fronts against the resistance, and they were unable to achieve any of their goals,” Iran’s new ambassador to Syria, Hossein Akbari, told the official IRNA news agency on Tuesday.
Like Syria, Iran is under Western sanctions that, combined with decades of mismanagement, have sent its national currency to new lows. Months of anti-government protests have failed to bring down the ruling clergy and return to the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, which lifted sanctions in exchange for curbs on Iran’s nuclear programme.
In 2015, Iran’s currency was trading at 32,000 rials to the dollar when it signed a nuclear deal with world powers. In February, it hit a record low of 600,000.
The visit of the Iranian president comes a week after the Minister of Roads and Urban Development, Mehrdad Bazarbash, met with Assad in Damascus, where he delivered a message from the Iranian president supporting the expansion of economic relations between the two countries, according to the official Iranian news agency.
Iran’s military presence in Syria has been a major concern for Israel, which has vowed to stop Iranian entrenchment along its northern border. Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on targets in government-held areas of Syria in recent years – but it rarely acknowledges it. Since the beginning of 2023, Syrian officials have attributed dozens of strikes on Syrian territory to Israel, the latest of which was at dawn on Tuesday, and the international airport of the northern city of Aleppo was taken out of service.
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