Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has arrived in Damascus for talks with Syrian government officials, the privately owned Tasnim news agency reported.
The top Iranian diplomat is scheduled to hold talks with President Bashar al-Assad and Prime Minister Imad Khamis on bilateral relations and the latest developments in Syria, the agency said.
Zarif’s visit on Monday comes after Amar Hatami, Iran’s defence minister, travelled to Damascus and signed an agreement for defence cooperation with his Syrian counterpart Ali Abdullah Ayoub. Hatami also met Assad duding his trip.
Iranian forces have backed Assad in the country’s seven-year-old civil war.
Tehran has provided steady political, financial, and military support to the government during this period.
‘Iranian advisers to stay’
Separately, Iran’s military attache to Damascus told Iranian media on Tuesday that the country’s military advisers would remain in Syria under a defence agreement signed this week.
“The continued presence of Iran’s advisers in Syria is one of the areas covered in the defensive-technical agreement between Tehran and Damascus,” said Brigadier-General Abolghasem Alinejad last Tuesday, according to the Fars and Tabnak news agencies.
Javad Zarif visited Turkey last week and met President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has been a staunch supporter of Syria’s rebel forces against Assad.
Russia and Iran, which support Assad, and Turkey have been in close cooperation over Syria in order to find a solution to the conflict.
Iranian, Russian and Turkish presidents are scheduled to meet in Tehran to discuss the latest developments in Syria in early September.
Since Russia military intervened on Assad’s behalf in 2015, the regime has regained much of the territory lost to fighters in the early years of the war.
Syria’s war has left more than 350,000 people dead and displaced millions since it broke out with the brutal repression of an initially peaceful uprising in 2011.
SOURCE: Al Jazeera and news agencies
