Syria’s Assad meets Iranian leaders on rare visit to Tehran
Syrian President Bashar Assad met with Iranian leaders in Tehran on Sunday, Iranian state-linked media reported, marking his second trip to major wartime ally Iran since Syria’s civil war erupted in 2011.
Nour News, a website close to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, reported that Assad met Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Ebrahim Raisi earlier in the day. It said the leaders praised the strong ties between their nations and vowed to boost relations further. Assad was reported to have left Tehran for Damascus later on Sunday.
“Everybody now looks at Syria as a power,” Khamenei told Assad in the meeting, according to Iran’s semiofficial Tasnim news agency, believed to be close to the country’s powerful paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. ”The respect and credibility of Syria is now much more than before.”
Assad, for his part, said that strong relations between Iran and Syria served as a bulwark against Israel’s influence in the Middle East.
“Strategic relations between Iran and Syria is caused by the lack of domination of the Zionist regime in the region,” Assad was quoted as saying by Nour News.
Read More: Times of Israel