Russian delegation makes first official visit to Syria since ousting of Assad
News agency RIA Novo said the delegation included Russia’s deputy foreign minister and the Russian president’s special envoy for Syria.
A delegation of Russian officials arrived in Damascus on Tuesday, Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported.
It is the first such delegation to visit Syria since the fall of former president Bashar Assad, an ally of Moscow, in December in a lightning rebel offensive.
Assad took refuge in Russia after he was ousted.
The report said the delegation included Russian deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy for Syria, Alexander Lavrentyev.
RIA Novosti did not offer any other details of the visit.
There was no official comment from Syria’s interim government, but the semi-official Al Watan newspaper reported that the Russian delegation would meet the country’s de facto leader, Ahmad al-Sharaa, and foreign minister Asaad al-Shaibani.
Moscow’s scorched-earth intervention in support of Assad once turned the tide of Syria’s civil war.
Syria’s new authorities have not cut off relations with Moscow or forced a complete exit of Russian military forces from bases in Syria, but earlier this month Al Watan reported that a contract with a Russian company to manage the port in Tartus had been cancelled.
Following Assad’s downfall, Russia relocated its troops and assets from all over Syria to its main hub at the Hmeimim air base near Latakia.
There has been no indication that Moscow is preparing to evacuate the Hmeimim base or the naval facility in Tartus altogether.
The termination of a contract for a Russian company to modernise the Tartus commercial port did not directly affect the Russian naval facility, which was leased under a separate deal.
Also on Tuesday, a delegation from the Palestinian Authority (PA) made its first visit to Damascus.
The delegation, headed by Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa, met Mr al-Sharaa, the PA said in a statement. No details of the discussions were given.
Palestinian refugees in Syria, which number about 450,000, were not given citizenship under previous Syrian governments, ostensibly to preserve their right to go back to the homes they fled or were forced from during the 1948 creation of the state of Israel and where they are currently banned from returning.
The new Syrian government has not indicated how it might approach the status of the refugees.
