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Syria’s Al-Sharaa hosts Ukraine’s foreign minister

Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa and Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan Al-Shibani meet with the Ukrainian delegation in Damascus on Dec. 30, 2024. (Reuters)
Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa and Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan Al-Shibani meet with the Ukrainian delegation in Damascus on Dec. 30, 2024. (Reuters)
Syria’s de factor leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa, right, receives Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha in Damascus on Dec. 30, 2024. (AFP)
Syria’s de factor leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa, right, receives Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha in Damascus on Dec. 30, 2024. (AFP)
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30 Dec 2024 07:12:16 GMT9
30 Dec 2024 07:12:16 GMT9
  • Kyiv moves to build ties with the new leadership in Damascus

DAMASCUS: Syria’s de facto ruler Ahmed Al-Sharaa held talks on Monday with a senior Ukrainian delegation led by Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, the Syrian state news agency (SANA) reported, as Kyiv moves to build ties with the new leadership in Damascus.

SANA provided no immediate details about their talks, held in Damascus, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said last Friday his country had sent its first batch of food aid to Syria, which is traditionally a close ally of Russia.

Zelensky said that 500 metric tonnes of wheat flour were already on their way to Syria as part of Kyiv’s humanitarian “Grain from Ukraine” initiative in cooperation with the United Nations World Food Programme.

Ukraine, a global producer and exporter of grain and oilseeds, has said it wants to restore relations with Syria following the overthrow of President Bashar Assad and his flight into exile in Russia.

Ukraine, which has been battling invading Russian forces for nearly three years, traditionally exports wheat and corn to countries in the Middle East, but not to Syria, which in the Assad era imported food from Russia.

Russian wheat supplies to Syria have been suspended because of uncertainty about the new government in Damascus and payment delays, Russian and Syrian sources told Reuters in early December. Russia had supplied wheat to Syria using complex financial and logistical arrangements to circumvent Western sanctions imposed on both Moscow and Damascus.

The ousting of Assad by Al-Sharaa’s Islamist group, Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, has thrown the future of Russia’s military bases in Syria — the Hmeimim air base in Latakia and the Tartous naval facility — into question.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the status of Russia’s military bases would be the subject of negotiations with the new leadership in Damascus.

Al-Sharaa said this month that Syria’s relations with Russia should serve common interests.

Reuters

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