Syrian President Ahmed Al Sharaa told Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday he would honour all past deals struck between his country and Moscow, a pledge suggesting Moscow’s two main military bases in Syria are safe.
Sharaa, who once headed the Syrian branch of Al Qaeda and who toppled predecessor Bashar Al Assad, a close Russian ally, late last year, was speaking at the start of Kremlin talks with Putin on his first visit to Russia since coming to power.
“There are bilateral relations and shared interests that bind us with Russia, and we respect all agreements made with it. We are working on redefining the nature of relations with Russia,” Sharaa, who was speaking in Arabic, told Putin.
Putin told him that Moscow was ready to do all it could to act on what he called ‘many interesting and useful beginnings’ that had already been discussed between the two sides when it came to renewing relations.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said after the talks that Moscow was willing to work on oil projects in Syria and help it to restore energy, rail and other infrastructure destroyed during years of civil war. The two leaders had discussed this at length, he said.
“Russian companies have been working in Syria for a long time, at oil fields. There are fields that require development, those that are mothballed, and new fields. We are ready to participate,” Novak said.
The Kremlin said before the talks that the fate of Russia’s two main bases in Syria – the Hmeimim air base in Syria’s Latakia province, and its naval facility at Tartous on the coast – would be discussed.
Russia has a military presence at Qamishli airport – in the northeast near the borders of Türkiye and Iraq – as well.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday that Moscow believed Damascus wanted the military bases to stay and spoke about using them as logistics hubs to get aid to Africa.
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