Assad Makes Surprise Visit to Moscow
Syria's embattled President Bashar Assad traveled to Moscow for his first known foreign trip since the conflict broke out in his country in 2011, holding key talks on the crisis with President Vladimir Putin.
Assad, who last visited Russia in 2008, used the surprise visit on Tuesday evening to thank Putin for launching a campaign of air strikes in Syria last month, with the two leaders agreeing that military operations must be followed by political steps.
Putin pledged to continue to support Damascus militarily, while calling for a political solution involving all groups to try to end the war, the Kremlin said as it announced the visit on Wednesday.
Assad's talks with one of his few remaining allies came the same day the United Nations said tens of thousands of people had fled new regime offensives in Syria.
Assad told Putin the Russian air bombardments launched on September 30 -- which have prompted an outcry in the West -- had helped stop the spread of "terrorism" in his country, the Kremlin said.
The strikes are reported to have killed 370 people so far, a third of them civilians, according to a monitoring group.
Russia insists the campaign is intended to target the extremist Islamic State group and others it describes as "terrorists".
But rebels and the West accuse Moscow of seeking to prop up Assad and of striking moderate and Islamist opposition forces rather than just jihadists.
Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov described Assad's lightning trip as a "working visit" at the invitation of the Kremlin, and by Wednesday morning, Assad was back in Damascus, the Syrian presidency told AFP.
It appears the Kremlin waited for the Syrian leader to return home before announcing the visit.
Peskov declined to say whether the "lengthy" talks, which also saw the two leaders and their entourages dine together, brought any firm results nor whether Assad's fate had been discussed.
Putin said Russia was ready to do everything it could to help secure peace in Syria, where the conflict first erupted as a peaceful uprising against the regime in March 2011.
Since then, more than 250,000 people have been killed and millions forced from their homes, sparking a mass migration of refugees that has raised tensions in Europe.
"We are ready to make our contribution not only during armed hostilities in the fight against terrorism but also during a political process," Putin said.
Assad also stressed the importance of "further political steps," according to the Kremlin statement.
"I need to say that the political steps which Russia has taken since the start of the crisis prevented the events in Syria from developing along a more tragic scenario," he said.
"Terrorism which has now spread through the region would have consumed much larger areas and would have spread throughout much more territory if it were not for your actions and your decisions," he said in comments translated into Russian.
Putin said the Syrian people should decide the fate of their country, a thinly veiled jab at the United States which has long insisted that Assad should go before there can be any peaceful settlement.
"Based on positive results in military operations at the end of the day a long-term settlement can be achieved on the basis of a political process with the participation of all political forces, ethnic and religious groups," the Kremlin strongman said.
"And ultimately, the final word no doubt should rest solely with the Syrian people."
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, the head of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service, Mikhail Fradkov and Nikolai Patrushev, chief of Russia's security council, all took part in the talks.
The Syrian presidency said Putin and Assad held a total of three meetings including a closed one-on-one encounter.
With the Russian bombing campaign now in its fourth week, Moscow and Washington announced Tuesday they had agreed measures to reduce the risk of a confrontation between Russian warplanes and others from a U.S.-led coalition bombing Syria.
But Moscow has also chided Washington -- which has refused to host a high-ranking delegation from Russia -- for refusing to cooperate on Syria beyond ensuring the safety of flights.
"I believe some of our partners simply have mush for brains," Putin said last week.
Britain has also refused to cooperate with Moscow and share intelligence on IS targets in Syria, Russia's ambassador in London Alexander Yakovenko said in televised remarks.
Russia has carried out more than 500 air raids in support of Assad, which the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said had killed more than 370 people.
Iran, another key Assad ally, has reportedly sent hundreds of troops to fight alongside his forces.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said Tuesday that around 35,000 people were reported to have been displaced from the outskirts of the second city Aleppo following renewed government offensives.
Aleppo, once Syria's commercial hub, has been a key focus of the fighting and since 2012, it has been divided between government forces and rebels.
Source: Agence France Presse
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