Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi advocates Syrian restoration
In the wake of the ongoing devastation rocking the Islamic Republic of Syria, the President Ebrahim Raisi has met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. After landing at Damascus International Airport, the Iranian cabinet was received by the Syrian Minister of Economy, Samer al-Khalil, who is leading a large political and business delegation. Also present at the reception were Hosein Amir Abdolahian, the head of Iranian diplomacy, and Mohammad Reza Ashtiani and Javad Oji, the Defence and Oil Ministers respectively, according to SANA news agency.
Since the outbreak of the war in March 2011, Syria has had few allies in the international arena. One of the most important and significant supporters of Damascus has been the Islamic Republic of Iran, in large part because Iran is the key conduit for Syrian hydrocarbon supplies. Nevertheless, the Iranian leader's visit is the first official visit in more than a decade since the outbreak of the war. Former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the last leader to visit Syria in 2010, according to the Syrian daily Al-Watan.
However, Iranian diplomacy has monitored the situation by sending political and military representatives to try to support the al-Assad government. Amongst the representation included military personnel from across the Middle East. In addition, Russia and Iran's strong support for Syria has been successful in moderating the situation as much as possible.
Raisi is expected to meet with Assad during his two-day visit and sign a series of agreements and memoranda of understanding (MoUs) to strengthen cooperation, Syrian state and pro-government media reported. Raisi urged reconstruction efforts and the repatriation of refugees who had fled the country's war in an interview with the Arabic television network Al-Mayadeen. He will also go to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, a memorial to Syrian soldiers killed in combat, as well as the shrines of Sayida Zeinab and Sayida Ruqayya, both revered by Shia Muslims.
According to IRNA, Iran's official news agency, Mohammad Yamshidi, the 'number two' at the Presidential Office for Political Affairs, tweeted of his trip: 'West Asia has experienced a period of unrest and geopolitical changes, with two results: Iran's victory and America's failure. President Raisi's visit to Syria will coincide with this resistance, according to Yamshidi. He also mentioned Qasem Soleimani, a member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard who was killed by Americans in Baghdad in 2020. He said, "Soleimani taught us that effective diplomacy must be based on real power."
The Iranian president's visit comes as some Arab nations, including regional powers Egypt and Saudi Arabia, opened their doors to Assad and their Foreign Ministers visited Damascus recently. Along with the first such trip since ties between the two nations were severed in 2012, the Syrian Foreign Minister also paid a visit to the Saudi capital of Riyadh in April.
After seven years of hostilities, Iran and Saudi Arabia, a major funder of Syrian opposition fighters, reached an understanding in China in March to restore diplomatic ties and reopen embassies.
Syria is one of the regional states where the two nations fought proxy wars, so reconciliation between Iran and Saudi Arabia is likely to benefit the Syrian nation. A major rupture in relations led to Syria's expulsion from the Arab League in 2011 as a result of Assad's brutal crackdown on protesters. Since then, the conflict has claimed nearly half a million lives and uprooted nearly half of the pre-war population (23 million people).
Since the Iranian president's trip to Syria in 2010, Raisi's trip to Damascus is the first by an Iranian leader. Since the beginning of the conflict, Assad has made two trips to Iran, the last of which took place in May last year. The Iranian president's visit also comes a week after his minister of roads and urban development, Mehrdad Bazrpash, met with Assad in Damascus and conveyed a message from the Iranian president in support of developing economic ties between the two nations, according to Iran's state news agency.
Israel is deeply concerned about Iran's military presence in Syria and has vowed to prevent Iranian encroachment on its northern border. Israel has launched hundreds of strikes against targets in government-held areas of Syria in recent years, but rarely acknowledges them. Syrian authorities have blamed Israel for a dozen strikes against Syrian territory since early 2023, the most recent of which occurred early Tuesday morning that destroyed Aleppo's international airport.
