TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Syrian President Bashar Assad met with Iranian leaders in Tehran on Sunday, Iranian state-linked media reported, marking his second journey to main wartime ally Iran since Syria’s civil warfare erupted in 2011.
Nour Information, a web site near Iran’s Supreme Nationwide Safety Council, reported that Assad met Iran’s Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Ebrahim Raisi earlier within the day. It stated the leaders praised the sturdy ties between their nations and vowed to spice up relations additional. Assad was reported to have left Tehran for Damascus afterward Sunday.
“All people now appears at Syria as an influence,” Khamenei instructed Assad within the assembly, based on Iran’s semiofficial Tasnim information company, believed to be near the nation’s highly effective paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. ”The respect and credibility of Syria is now far more than earlier than.”
Assad, for his half, stated that sturdy relations between Iran and Syria served as a bulwark in opposition to Israel’s affect within the Center East.
“Strategic relations between Iran and Syria is attributable to the shortage of domination of the Zionist regime within the area,” Assad was quoted as saying by Nour Information.
Iranian media revealed pictures of Assad shaking palms warmly with Khamenei and grinning beside Raisi.
Assad has hardly ever travelled overseas since his crackdown on Syria’s civil unrest in 2011 led to a devastating civil warfare and made him a worldwide pariah.
He has visited key patrons Russia and Iran, and made his first journey to the United Arab Emirates because the battle earlier this yr — the clearest sign but that the Arab world is keen to re-engage with the as soon as broadly shunned president as Arab states search to blunt the increasing affect of their Shiite foe in Syria.
Tehran has given the Syrian authorities billions of {dollars} in support and despatched Iran-backed fighters to battle alongside his forces — help that, together with Russian air energy, has helped flip the tide in Assad’s favor.
The Tehran go to marked Assad’s first journey to the Iranian capital in over two years. The go to was not introduced beforehand.
Police had been out in pressure at main thoroughfares and intersections in Tehran on Sunday.