Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad arrived in Tehran on Sunday where he met with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Ebrahim Raisi, Iranian state media reported.
According to the report, Khamenei called for further improvement in ties between the two countries.
“Efforts should be made to improve relations between the two countries more than before,” Khamenei was quoted by his website, Leader.ir, as saying during the meeting.
Khamenei has reportedly claimed that Syria today has more “respect and prestige” on the world stage than it did before the war.
“Syria today is not the same as pre-war Syria; although there was no destruction before the war, the respect and prestige of Syria is much higher now than in the past, and everyone looks at this country as a power,” Khamenei said.
For his part, Assad said that the “strategic relations” between Iran and Syria stopped Israel from “ruling the region.”
This was al-Assad’s second visit to Iran since the start of the Syria war in 2011. His first visit took place in 2019.
Iran has been Assad’s biggest ally since the beginning of the Syrian conflict.
