Tehran, May 9, (dpa/GNA) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad paid a short visit to Tehran on Sunday and returned to Damascus a few hours later.
According to the Isna news agency, he met with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Ebrahim Raisi during the visit.
“You have won an international war, which has also enabled Syria to have far more prestige and credit in the world now than before,” Khamenei said in the meeting with al-Assad, according to the report.
The Iranian leader, who according to the constitution has the final say in all strategic matters in Iran, praised Syria’s resistance to Israel while criticizing the normalization of relations between Tel Aviv and some Arab governments.
“But it is not governments and negotiations that decide the future of the region, but its people,” the Iranian president said, adding that an example of this for him was Syria, “where everyone had bet on an imminent collapse of the Syrian government, but with the support of the people this bet was lost.”
Al-Assad thanked the Iranian leadership for its support in the Syrian civil war as well as Iran’s spiritual role within the anti-Israeli resistance front.
“Ruins can be rebuilt, but not principles like legitimate resistance (against Israel),” the Syrian president said, according to Isna.
He described the Iran-Syria axis as the main reason why Israel could not achieve the geopolitical dominance it had hoped for in the region.
It was Assad’s second visit to Iran since Syria’s civil war began in 2011.
Iran has consistently supported Assad’s government and what Tehran calls his “fight against terrorism” over the past 11 years.
Iran’s leadership considers Syria one of its closest allies in the conflict with arch-enemy Israel.
GNA