Putin hosts Syria’s Assad as Kremlin seeks to mend ties between Syria and Turkey
- The meeting follows a surprise announcement last week of a Chinese-brokered restoration of diplomatic ties between Saudi Arabia and Iran
- Bashar al-Assad, who arrived in Moscow on Tuesday, voiced support for Moscow’s military campaign in Ukraine
“We are in constant contact and our relations are developing,” the Russian leader told Assad at the televised start of their meeting, hailing “significant results in the fight against international terrorism.”
Assad, who arrived in Moscow on Tuesday, voiced support for Moscow’s military campaign in Ukraine and said the visit would mark “a new facet” in his country’s ties with Moscow.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov earlier told reporters the talks would focus on bilateral ties but said: “Turkey-Syria relations will certainly be touched upon in one way or another.”
Syria’s civil war in 2011 strained relations between Damascus and Ankara, which has long supported rebel groups opposed to Assad.
Turkey severed diplomatic ties with Syria soon after the war began.
Analysts say Moscow now wants to bridge the divide between the two countries that see a common “enemy” in Kurdish groups in northern Syria, described as “terrorists” by Ankara and backed by Washington.
Complex questions need to be resolved, however, particularly around the presence of Turkish troops in northern Syria.
Damascus is a staunch ally of Moscow, which intervened in the Syrian conflict in 2015, launching air strikes to support the government’s struggling forces.
With Russian and Iranian support, Damascus won back much of the territory it lost in the early stages of the war.
The Syrian war has killed around half a million people and displaced millions more since 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.
Assad last visited Moscow in September 2021 when he also met Putin.