DAMASCUS: Syria’s interim leader Ahmed al-Sharaa emphasised the “strong strategic ties” between his country and Russia during his first telephone call with President Vladimir Putin since taking power, the Syrian presidency said on Wednesday.
Rebels led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham ousted Moscow’s close ally Bashar al-Assad in December after a lightning offensive, and questions have remained over the fate of Russia’s two military bases in the war-torn country.
Sharaa emphasised “the strong strategic ties between the two countries and Syria’s openness to all parties” in a way that serves “the interests of the Syrian people and strengthens Syria’s stability and security”, the presidency statement said.
It also said Putin extended “an official invitation to Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani to visit Russia”. The Kremlin, in a readout of the call, said Putin wished Sharaa “success in solving the tasks facing the new leadership of the country for the benefit of the Syrian people”.
US tells UN it can no longer pay for Syrian
camps holding IS-linked prisoners
“The Russian side emphasised its principled position in support of the unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Syrian state,” it added. Moscow helped keep Assad in power when it intervened militarily in Syria’s war in 2015, launching devastating strikes on rebel-held areas.
When rebels swept into Damascus in December, Russia granted Assad asylum, angering many Syrians including the country’s new rulers. Russia is seeking to secure the fate of its naval base in Tartus and its air base at Hmeimim — both on Syria’s Mediterranean coast and Moscow’s only military bases outside the former Soviet Union — with the new Syrian authorities.
Both were left vulnerable after Assad was ousted, in a major setback for Russia’s foreign policy.
‘Building a new Syria’
The Syrian presidency also said the two leaders exchanged “views on the current situation in Syria and the political roadmap for building a new Syria”.
Last month, Syria’s new leadership urged Moscow to “address past mistakes” during talks in Damascus with Russian officials that touched on “the brutal war waged by the Assad regime”.
Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said he and his delegation had met for three hours with Sharaa and Shaibani. Russia’s foreign ministry said that visit came at a “crunch point” in Russia-Syria relations, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov calling it an “important trip”.
Peskov at the time declined to comment on reports that Syria’s new rulers had requested Assad’s extradition and to be paid compensation by Moscow. Sharaa in an interview in December with Al-Arabiya TV channel noted the “deep strategic interests between Russia and Syria”.
“All Syria’s arms are of Russian origin, and many power plants are managed by Russian experts … We do not want Russia to leave Syria in the way that some wish,” he said.
Diplomats from Ukraine, where Russia has been waging a full-scale invasion since 2022, visited Syria’s new rulers in December, with Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga urging Sharaa to expel Russia from the country.
US aid
US assistance for managing and securing camps in northeastern Syria with prisoners linked to the militant Islamic State group “cannot last forever,” the acting US Ambassador to the United Nations, Dorothy Shea, told the Security Council on Wednesday.
“The United States has shouldered too much of this burden for too long. Ultimately, the camps cannot remain a direct US financial responsibility,” she told the 15-member council, referencing the al-Hol and Roj displaced persons camps.
“We accordingly continue to urge countries to expeditiously repatriate their displaced and detained nationals who remain in the region,” she said.
Packed with families linked to IS after the extremist group’s defeat in Syria in 2019, the al-Hol camp has a population of around 40,000. It is widely viewed as a breeding ground for extremism and a security concern for regional states, particularly neighbouring Iraq, where IS at one point controlled about a third of the country.
Camp authorities — led by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish-led force that controls northeast Syria — have long called on countries to repatriate citizens in the camp, which hosts thousands of foreigners.
Iraq has repatriated more than 10,000, according to Iraqi officials, but few Western states have shown interest in following suit. Of those currently in the camp, nearly 16,000 are Syrians, camp authorities say.
