Syria’s President Bashar Assad met with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and a number of senior officials during an unannounced visit to Tehran on Sunday morning, Iranian state TV reported.
Assad also met with his Iranian counterpart, Ebrahim Raisi, before flying back to Damascus, according to state TV. It was his second visit to Iran since the start of Syria’s civil war in 2011. Tehran has heavily backed Assad throughout the conflict.
During the meeting, Khamenei said both Syria and the Islamic Republic would “continue powerfully” to resist Israel’s efforts to dominate the Middle East and dismissed recent alliances with a number of countries in the region as running counter to public opinion, state TV reported.
Assad said Syria was ready to expand security and economic cooperation with Iran, according to the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency.
