Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi yesterday landed in Damascus on the first visit by an Iranian head of state to the war-wracked country in more than a decade.
Tehran has been a main backer of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government since an uprising turned into a full-blown war in March 2011 and has played an instrumental role in turning the tide in his favor.
Iran has sent scores of military advisers and thousands of Tehran-backed fighters from around the Middle East to fight on al-Assad’s side. With the help of Russia and Iran, Syrian government forces have controlled large parts of the country in recent years.
Photo: AFP / Syrian Presidency
During his two-day visit, Raisi is expected to meet al-Assad to sign several agreements and memorandums of understanding to boost cooperation, Syrian state and pro-government media reported.
In an interview with pan-Arab television channel Al-Mayadeen, Raisi called for reconstruction efforts and for refugees who fled the country’s war to return to the country.
Raisi, who is a heading a high-ranking political and economic delegation, was received on arrival at Damascus International Airport by Syrian Minister of Economy and Foreign Trade Samer al-Khalil.
He is also set to visit the Sayida Zeinab and Sayida Ruqayya shrines, both holy sites in Shiite Islam, as well as the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, a monument dedicated to Syrian soldiers killed in battle.
The previous Iranian president to visit Syria was then-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2010.
Raisi’s visit comes as some Arab countries, including regional powerhouses Egypt and Saudi Arabia, have been opening up to al-Assad, and their foreign ministers have visited Damascus in recent weeks.
Syria’s foreign minister also visited the Saudi Arabian capital, Riyadh, last month, the first such visit since the two countries cut relations in 2012.
In March, Iran and Saudi Arabia, a main backer of Syrian opposition fighters, reached an agreement in China to re-establish diplomatic relations and reopen embassies after seven years of tensions.
The reconciliation between Iran and Saudi Arabia is likely to have positive effects on regional states where the two countries fought proxy wars, including Syria.
Syria was widely shunned by Arab governments over al-Assad’s brutal crackdown on protesters and the breakdown in relations culminated with Syria being ousted from the Arab League in 2011. The conflict has since killed nearly 500,000 people and displaced half of Syria’s pre-war population of 23 million.
“America and its allies failed on all fronts against the resistance, and could not achieve any of their goals,” Iranian Ambassador to Syria Hossein Akbari told Iran’s state news agency on Tuesday.
Raisi’s visit also comes a week after Iranian Minister of Roads and Urban Development Mehrdad Bazrpash met al-Assad in Damascus, where he delivered a message from the Iranian president supporting the expansion of economic relations between the two countries, according to Iran’s state 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-controlled parts of Syria in recent years — but rarely acknowledges them.
Since the beginning of this year, Syrian officials have attributed a dozen strikes on Syrian territory to Israel, the latest of which came early on Tuesday and put the international airport of the northern city of Aleppo out of service.
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