Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was in Iran on Sunday where he met the country's leadership, including the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Ebrahim Raisi.
It's rare for Assad to leave his country and Iran is only the third country that he has visited since the beginning of a civil war in Syria in 2011. The other two countries that he has since visited are Russia and the United Arab Emirates.
While the current visit to Iran is his first in over two years, he had visited UAE in March this year — his first visit to the country since 2011.
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Iran is a key regional supporter of Assad in the the Syrian nation civil war. Russia is another key supporter and it's believed that the tides of war only turned in Assad's favour afer Moscow intervened in his support in 2015.
Earlier in March, Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian visited the Syrian capital Damascus. Reuters quoted him as saying that Iran's priority was to strengthen strategic ties with Syria in a changing global scene after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Reuters has reported that Iran's economic influence in Syria has grown in recent years. It has supplied the Syrian regime with lines of credit and has won lucrative business contracts, as per a Reuters report.
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Nour News, which reported Assad's visit, said that details of the meetings held would be shared later. Nour News is close to Iran's security apparatus.
(With AP inputs)
