Russia Putin receives Assad in the Kremlin: talks on the situation in the Middle East

Russian President Vladimir Putin has met Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad in the Kremlin for talks on the situation in the Middle East.

The situation in the region is tending to worsen, Putin said in a video fragment published by the Kremlin. According to the video, the Kremlin leader also spoke with Assad about expanding economic and trade relations between the two countries. Alongside Iran, Russia has been Assad's most important ally for years. He last met Putin in Russia in March last year.

According to the Kremlin, Assad said at the start of the meeting on Wednesday that Syria and Russia had overcome difficult challenges in recent decades and had maintained their mutual trust. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said afterwards that the two politicians had discussed a wide range of issues. He left open whether a possible meeting between Assad and Turkish head of state Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Russia had been discussed.

After years of diplomatic silence between Turkey and Syria, there have been signs of rapprochement between the neighboring states for more than a year. Turkey is actually on the side of the rebels in the civil war in Syria, which broke out in 2011. Erdogan severed diplomatic relations with Damascus in 2012 and described Assad as a "murderer".

Assad has so far rejected any rapprochement on his part as long as Turkish troops occupy northern Syria. Turkey has also been conducting operations with ground troops in northern Syria since 2016 and controls parts of the region with allied groups. Erdogan has recently held out the prospect of an end to the operations in Syria and Iraq.